


The Silence Between The Lines

by dustbunnyprophet



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Denial, Getting Together, M/M, Mild Language, Past Domestic Violence, Pliroy Week 2017, Slow Burn, Soulmates, canon compliant AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-30 01:52:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 34,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10150523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustbunnyprophet/pseuds/dustbunnyprophet
Summary: Ever since he had been old enough to hold a crayon in his hand Jean had faithfully scribbled on his skin. But no one ever wrote back.Until they did.Pliroy Week 2017 - Day 5: Soulmates





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm like two days late with this prompt. I'm so sorry! Also I still need to write the thingy for Day 4. I'm a disaster!  
> This is my first foray in the Soulmate trope, and I also tried using a bit of a different style for this one, so let me know if I managed to do a decent job of it.
> 
> I'm pretty confident it will be only a two chapter story with Yuri's pov in the next chapter. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't turn into another monster. Mirror Pair is already eating my soul!  
> (In case any of you does read MP, I apologise for the delay in updating, but pliroy week took precedence. As soon as it's over I'll get back to my usual writing rhythm.) <3

 

 

Jean didn’t have a soulmate. It had taken him a long and lonely amount of years to realise this truth. To make peace with the fact that there was no one for him, not the way his father was for his mother, or coach Cialdini’s wife to the Italian who had coached Jean for a season in his Juniors. Jean was unmatched. It was uncommon, but not unheard of.

Ever since he had been old enough to hold a crayon in his pudgy hands, Jean doodled on his arm and legs. And later, wrote messages, sentences, lyrics of songs he liked, of songs he composed. Every day Jean faithfully scribbled something, a lonely documentation of his heart’s winding path through childhood and teenhood. But no one ever wrote back.

It didn’t happen suddenly. Hope withered slowly, ebbing away like the dying of the light as the seasons passed by and the darkness crept farther and farther until it had eaten everything up and the only light that came was the shimmer of the snow bathed in muted moonlight. As slowly as realisation crept upon him, so did acceptance. And when he met Isabella at a charity event in his last year of high school he did not think twice. Not after she told him that just like him she was unmatched.

A smart girl with a spine of steel behind deceitfully soft eyes. He did not love her. For all her beauty and chiming laughter, for all that their bodies slotted against one another in perfect bliss, it always rang hollow, echoing in the cavity of his chest with the sour reminder that they would never completely fit. That something will always be missing, that alchemical quintessence that could transform the affection of friendship and lust into something greater for even the word love to fully encompass.

But for all that Jean had always been a hopeless romantic, he knew this was the best he could have.

He stopped writing on himself.

After their first anniversary Jean got a tattoo on his right biceps, a maple leaf to remind him that while he would never be fully loved his country _did_ love him. He threw himself into skating, trying to earn that pride and affection, trying to prove that he deserved his skin marked with the symbol of his home. The year he debuted in the Senior division he tattooed the words of the national anthem underneath the leaf. Because he needed more that a symbol, he needed to be able to read the words that united them all under the same banner. Because love was not enough. Jean needed to belong.

With each golden medal, Jean added another tattoo. His initials on his left biceps, and then once again on the small of his back. Because he only had himself, and while he would never be whole, never be completed by another half he could still love himself enough to dull the roaring emptiness inside him.

And then came his first Grand Prix and Jean got bronze. He stood to the left of Victor Nikiforov and swore to himself that he would win. That he would get that last kind of love he was allowed to have. The ice.

Spring rolled around and Jean stopped at the tattoo parlour one last time. He had thought for a very long time what to ink his skin with. But no symbol or word that related to skating seemed to do the ice justice. So he chose the one thing that would give him the fickle mistress that the ice was. A fight. He got a brass knuckle inked on his left biceps.

The next day he started working on the Tano variations of his jumps. If he wanted to beat Nikiforov he had to be the best.

Two years had passed since Jean had asked Izzy out, and he had never written a single word on his skin. He had no soulmate, but he had a family, a girlfriend, a country, and soon soon he would have the ice. It would have to be enough.

It wasn’t.

Nikiforov retired to coach the Japanese skater who had come last at the GPF in Sochi. And suddenly it was too easy, too achievable. It felt like cheating. Brass knuckles became no better than jewellery. And the emptiness began to gape wider when there was nothing to distract him from it.

Isabella was not like him. She found serenity in her freedom, happy to have a choice. She would tell him that she was a whole person, that she didn’t need someone to slot the missing pieces inside her chest. And Jean envied her. Because even when he held her close to him, nothing but a sheen of sweat between them, he still yearned for something to fill the void.

He medalled at the qualifiers, standing atop the podium, and feeling his happiness was phony. Just a mask, an act to conceal how grey everything was growing at the edges.

When they returned to Montreal, Jean proposed. And Isabella accepted.

He stopped thinking about how cold his skin felt even in the throes of passion, how Isabella felt like wearing someone else’s skates, the shape of his heels never truly fitting the curve of the feet that had broken them in. His mind was awash in twilight and he could only accept it. He could forget.

The season came and went, only Words looming ahead with a hope for a rematch against Plisetsky who had outdone both him and Katsuki in Barcelona. Yuri who had the ice yielding to him through sheer willpower. He was a tight coil of anger strapped around a core of frailty. He could see it, in the smallest cracks of his mask when the boy thought no one was watching. But Jean watched. Because there was something in those fleeting glimpses of truth that reminded him of the image he saw when he looked in the mirror. It was never the King looking back at him, no matter how much he may wish it. It was just a dim impression inside a camera obscura. An illusion of completeness.

He didn’t know what made him do it. Maybe it was hope yearning for its swan song, or maybe it was the dull loneliness he had seen in Plisetsky’s eyes and that had made him feel pity for himself, that had made him get angry at the complacency of acceptance. But Jean fished a pen from his drawer and uncapped it. He lifted his sleeve and began to write.

_To the soulmate I wish I had been graced with. It’s a lonely life without you..._

The blue ink smudged down his forearm and onto his hand, his palm. And when he ran out of space he continued writing on his thigh, carefully penning all the loneliness he felt, pouring his heart on his skin. And not holding back. Rows upon rows of words curved and spiralled down his skin until Jean had written it all. Until there was nothing left to say.

And then he dropped his head on the pillow and closed his eyes, just breathing. He didn’t cry. He didn’t think he had anything left inside him to squeeze tears out of his eyes. He was bare wasteland, an endless expanse of sand and stone, suspended in the now. Jean was spent.

And then something strange happened.

A tingle of warmth sneaked up his arm. Jean opened his eyes, frowning. He thought he had imagined it, but his right forearm felt strange. Knitting his eyebrows tighter he pulled the sleeve of his shirt up.

And gaped.

There, in a messy scrawl was written a simple.

_Hello._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next one up: Yuri pov. Can't wait to write our angry kitten! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I upped the rating to mature because it's very well impossible to write Yuri's stream of consciousness without swearwords. XD  
> Also this fic is now being expanded to 4 chapters, because Yuri deiced he wanted to say his opinion on the matter before I was able to move the plot forward. What can I say? XD

 

 

Yuri didn’t believe in soulmates. While words had appeared on his skin for as long as he could remember, he never believed in all that bullshit about having a match. About a person that was supposed to make him happy and fulfilled. It was all a lie. His mother had told him so when he had been too little to understand, and later when she left because she couldn’t look at him, because Yuri looked too much like his father, like her _soulmate,_ Yuri knew she had given him only one precious thing other than his life. The truth.

He had vague recollections of his father, the rancid smell of alcohol, the loud voice ricocheting off the walls of their home. And his mother screaming, breaking plates, only to sob loudly when doors slammed. He had been five years old when his father had left. Three months later his mother had dumped him on his grandfather’s doorstep. By the time he turned six he only saw her on the odd weekend. Then only for his birthdays. She stopped coming altogether when he moved to Saint Petersburg to train under Yakov.

His mother had left him because he was a painful reminder of her stupidity, of believing in the crap people told you about finding your other half. Soulmates were a fat load of bullshit, and Yuri wanted nothing to do with it.

The moron on the other side of their connection obviously didn’t think like him. They kept writing on his skin, first in French and later in English. Sometimes it was sentences he recognised from songs, and he would roll his eyes. He still put them on his iPod. Yuri may not believe in soulmates, but good music transcended idiotic ideas about unconditional love and all that crap.

It didn’t mean he wanted to encourage them. If Yuri ever replied they would have expectations. They would want to be a part of Yuri’s life. And that was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t know who they were, and he had no interest in finding out. Soulmates were bullshit that religion had blown out of proportion. His Grandfather told him that he and his late Grandmother had not been soulmates and yet they had spent nearly three decades happily married. They had not left bruises on each other’s skin. Their doors were not chipped from being banged one time too many. The had a matching set of plates.

Yuri still ate from them.

The years trudged on, and Yuri got used to seeing the neat handwriting on his skin, the randomness of the sentences, the doodles that spoke of boredom, the occasional mixture of numbers and letter that he would later learn was algebra.

And then one day it all stopped.

It was his last season in Novice division and he was blazing through the competition, focusing all the anger and resentment he held towards the universe itself into his skating. He channeled that energy, the annoyance at seeing those stupid words in English and French. The frustration of having to learn the languages in the first place to be able to understand what the hell was the moron on the other side writing about. Because he may not believe in soulmates but he was not going to prance around the world without knowing what was boldly stated on his skin for all the world to see. Until the Russian Nationals, when after four days of skating events Yuri had noticed that his skin was pristine.

The idiot must have given up.

He wasn’t dead. Common knowledge had it that the death of a soulmate, or whatever they wanted to call the connection one had with another person, would be an intense feeling of loss. And since Yuri had not noticed for a couple of days that the moron had not written anything on his skin, he was fairly sure they were still alive.

He should have been relieved, and a part of him had been glad to be rid of that nonsense. But after nearly thirteen years of seeing ink on his skin, it felt eerily empty. It took him days of scowling to finally admit to himself that he was pissed off. He was perfectly aware it made no fucking sense, but he felt the scorching coils of anger whip inside his chest at the thought that even the idiot who believed them to be soulmates had left him. Everyone fucking left.

Yuri threw himself into skating with a renewed vigour, pushing himself harder and harder until the resentment became the flaring ache of muscles, and the anger turned into perfect figures sliced on the ice of his home rink. He made his debut in the Junior Division and shattered his competition at the JGP. One gold. Then another at Sochi. And then he was already starting to work on his Senior debut.

It felt like running away but there was nothing chasing him, nothing but the memories of their small Moscow apartment and the smell of overcooked borscht filling the staircase with its peeling paint and low ceilings. The images of his mother’s blond hair all tangled up in his father’s fist, and how large had the old couch looked when Yuri used to hide behind it. They were soulmates but they had hated each other.

And they had left him.

Everyone left. His parents. His fucking soulmate or whatever the hell should he call them. And then Victor too flew to Japan to supposedly chase down his own fucking soulmate. It was the last straw. Yuri boarded the first plane to Fukoka not giving a single shit about Yakov or anything. He was sick and tired of people abandoning him, breaking their promises. He didn’t care what he had to do, but Victor _was_ going to make him a short program for his Senior debut, willy nilly.

When he was given Agape Yuri was one fucking inch from murdering the silver-haired imbecil everyone acclaimed as a living legend. It felt like he was being mocked, and if it had been anyone but the old man he would have clawed their eyes out. The knowledge that he had been given this routine just so Victor could get inside Katsudon’s pants left a sour taste on his tongue, but it was better than being made fun of. So he only complained and ranted, but skated it in the end.

And won the fucking GPF with it. Even as he held the medal in his hand he could still scarcely believe that he was there, standing between Katsudon and the obnoxious Canadian moron, having broken world records _and_ written himself in the history of figure skating as the first single skater to win the Grand Prix Final on his Senior debut. It was everything he could have wanted, everything he had strived for in the months of gruelling practice with Lilia. He had been broken into pieces and put back together, becoming a veritable monster on the ice. He had sacrificed everything to get there. But it felt strangely empty standing at the top. Never mind Leroy was still fucking taller than him even standing on the lowest step of the podium.

He barely resisted the urge to kick him off the step and see him sprawl down on the ice. Maybe he would even break his stupid nose. It would surely improve his looks. It was only the thought of the gross level of cooing and worrying the idiot would receive if he got hurt that stopped him. It was bad enough having to stand next to him, he didn’t have to see him get coddled by that bitchy girlfriend he got. The one who had dared insulting his fans. The Yuri Angels may be the bane of his existence, but they were _his_ fans, and for all of their creepiness and fairly worrisome stalking skills, he was not going to allow anyone to badmouth them.

Nationals and Europeans passed in a blur, and before he knew it he was celebrating his sixteenth birthday along with Otabek who had surprised him with an unplanned visit to Saint Petersburg. His friendship with Beka was even more unbelievable than his achievements on the ice this season. Yuri truly had trouble believing he had a real friend. Someone who actually cared for him other than his Grandfather.

So perhaps it was Beka’s fault for putting hm in a sentimental state of mind. But when a couple of days later Yuri felt the familiar warmth on his skin that had accompanied him for the majority of his life, he lifted the sleeve of his shirt and began reading the endless stream of words that curled and looped around his left forearm, and then over his thighs. Words written by the person on the other end. Words meant entirely for him. He read about the loneliness of his supposed soulmate who believed Yuri inexistent. Who believed he was alone. And Yuri felt a strange pinprick of guilt. Because he had always assumed they _knew_ someone was reading their words, but just chose to ignore them. They thought they were alone.

Yuri didn’t believe in soulmates, it was utter bullshit. But he understood loneliness. He knew what it meant to stand alone inside that trench while life threw everything it had at you. Yuri knew.

So perhaps it was Beka’s fault, or perhaps it was just the echo of his own aches written in stark blue ink on his skin. But Yuri unzipped his backpack and pulled out a pen, writing.

_Hello._


	3. Chapter 3

Jean had a soulmate. After nineteen years of silence and desperate lines of ink curling and bending over his limbs as he reverently wrote, after having given up on the hope of ever being good enough to be graced with one, Jean saw five spidery letters appearing on the tan skin of his arm. And for a breathless moment everything stopped. The clicking of the clock up on his wall, the ridges on the plastic of the pen that bit into his hand, the warm air of his bedroom, it all disappeared, coiling into a single spot of warmth. Into the word his soulmate had written.

As he stared dazed at it, Jean did not stop to think about why they had never replied before. He did not think about what finding them would do to his engagement with Izzy. He did not think about the slow agony that had followed Jean throughout the years of silence. Those were thoughts that would hit him later, slamming into his chest one by one and chipping away at the bliss of elation he felt in that moment. But while he gazed at the _Hello_ written on his skin, Jean could only smile.

He was afraid to blink in fear that it would all disappear. That it was nothing but a dream.  Taking a deep breath Jean gingerly he lifted the pen, and wrote down on his arm a simple _Thank you,_ carefully pennig each letter and filling them with more than ink. In every loop of ink there were the countless nights in which Jean had hoped, prayed even to read a reply. To not be alone.

And now he wasn’t.

A long string of spidery words appeared a moment later, curling down the length of his forearm, and distracting him from the lump that was forming in his throat.

_What the fuck are you thanking me for?_

And Jean could help it, a wet chuckle escaped his lips.

 _Existing, I guess_ , he wrote, unable to explain the overwhelming breadth of emotion that pushed at the insides of his chest as he watched his soulmate reply.

_You should thank my parents for that. Good riddance though._

As the last sentence appeared on the top of his hand, Jean frowned. There was something bitter about it. Something not quite right.

 _What do you mean?_ he asked, writing on his calf for lack of space.

_It’s not like they’re around._

He swallowed, his brows knitting ever deeper. Jean almost wrote an automatic _I’m sorry_ , but stopped himself before the pen touched his skin. He had a gut feeling that his soulmate would not appreciate it. There was a weight to his words, meanings that were hidden in the flatness of the sentences. A resentment that Jean feared to touch, because it seemed on the edge of catching fire.

 _Okay then, can I thank you for finally replying to me, or are you gonna be bitchy about it too? ;)_ he wrote instead.

_Fuck you. I’m not bitchy! I just don’t tolerate idiots._

Jean felt a corner of his lips tug oupwards.

_Thank goodness I’m not an idiot then!_

The reply appeared on his stomach. It was a dry

_I’ll be the judge of that._

And Jean chuckled again, scribbling _Fair enough. As long as I get feedback I’m happy._

More words spidered into existence, stark on his chiselled stomach.

_Whatever. I’m going to sleep. It’s too fucking late here._

_You’re not in Canada?_ he scribbled, lifting his eyebrows. It had never occurred to him that his soulmate could live somewhere else. In another timezone apparently.

_That explains the French I guess. And no, I’m in Russia._

_Russia! I’ve been to Moscow several times!_ Jean wrote excitedly, remembering the last Rostelecom Cup. The chill of the November air and the way it had felt to climb that podium, to get his second gold in the qualifiers. To compete against skaters like Plisetsky who was a veritable monster on the ice. He grinned, his thought straying to the rush of adrenaline on the ice, but also the surreal way the younger skater had moved. Especially in Barcelona. To get his ass kicked by a skater doing his Senior debut, Jean felt humbled. And only a bit pissed off at himself for having sabotaged himself on the short program.

Jean’s musings were suddenly interrupted by yet another rush of subtle warmth, this time on his hipbone.

_I was born there. I live in Piter now._

_Piter? Where is that?_ Jean asked, frowning at the unfamiliar name. He had just unlocked his phone to google it, when his soulmate replied.

_Saint Petersburg. We call it Piter._

_Ah, okay! I had no idea._ He wrote, happy to have found out something about his soulmate. Just as he mused about what he knew about the city in question he remembered his soulmate had told Jean it was very late there, so he added _I’m gonna let you sleep. Bonne nuit. :)_

 _Whatever._ Спокойной ночи

It took Jean twenty minutes to install the Russian keyboard on his phone, google what he learned was “goodnight” in Russian, and install Duolingo. Because in all the rush of happiness, he had one moment of practical thought. His soulmate was Russian, and Jean was going to be damned if he didn’t learn their language. It was the least he could do.

With that thought he closed his eyes, smiling goofily.

The days passed quickly, and the realisations that Jean had not given himself time to have in the heat of the moment peeked their ugly heads one by one, souring somewhat the elation he felt at the knowledge that in the end he was _not_ alone. That there was someone for him. Someone who had taken their merry time replying, but for all that it stung somewhere in the dull regions of his chest, Jean didn’t care. About any of that. Not when he could finally see light begin to seep into the murky greyness his life had been reduced in the past years. He knew he would have to deal with it eventually, but for now he was happy to bask in the relief of finding his place.

His half.

His parents had been sad it was not Isabella, but of course they had always known the two of them were not soulmates. And Izzy for her part, took it better than he expected. She heaved a sigh that was loaded with sadness, but she hugged him tenderly, flicking his fringe off his forehead with a finger, and telling him it was going to be alright. That he deserved to feel whole like she did. That even though she had hoped to grow old by his side, she understood what having a soulmate meant to Jean.

And said soulmate kept writing back. Caustic replies that made Jean snicker, thinly veiled insults that made him push at their buttons with glee. Short clipped sentences when Jean ventured into topics that they did not wish to touch. He did not learn much of them, other than where they lived, and that they were probably younger than him. Several complaints about a growth spurt had clued Jean in.

And made him wonder if his soulmate was male. Girls tended to grow up more gradually than boys after all. But he didn’t want to assume. So he kept thinking of them in uncertain terms, focusing, never thinking of them in terms of gender, for all that he _did_ wish to know how they looked. Moreso, he wished to see them in person, to be there by their side, where he belonged. But it was rushed, they had just barely spoken to one another and after waiting for so long Jean reasoned he could exercise some patience.

Besides Worlds were approaching fast and Jean was already distracted enough in his training. His parents were understanding, but only ever so much. So he forced himself to focus on the ice. He had gotten bronze at the GPF, but he _could_ have gotten silver or perhaps even gold if he hadn’t been swept away by his anxiety. Which meant he had a chance at the World Championship.

He needed just to skate as well as he had in Barcelona. And keep his mind focused. But where during the Nationals and Four Continents Jean had been worried the approaching World Championship did not fill him with the dread of succumbing to his own mind. Because this time he was not alone. And he had someone to win a gold for.

His soulmate.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go... <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently Yuri didn't want to collaborate and this fic became 6 chapters long. Oh, well.

 

 

Yuri still didn’t believe in soulmates. It was utter bullshit. But it was nice to talk to someone without any restraint. He wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened, but as he had replied to the messages appearing on his skin, an urge for honesty had begun to burn inside his chest, growing brighter and brighter. Perhaps it was not knowing who the other person was.  Or the knowledge that they could not judge him. Yuri wasn’t sure, but what he  _ did  _ know was that it was so eerily easy to spill his heart to the person who wrote on his skin.

It begun in March, a couple of weeks before the World Championship. And it never stopped. Throughout the intense training, the nerves, the competition itself, messages kept appearing on his skin and Yuri would hastily scratch the pen on any available bit of skin to reply. He would write it all. The urge to keep winning. The frustration at his body failing him as his bones began to grow. The silver he got at Worlds. 

That one had stung. 

He had written and written, harshly venting everything that simmered under his breastbone. And yet he never explained it outright. He never wrote the dry truth. The resentment of losing to Katsudon by a fucking decimal difference. The irritation at seeing the Canadian dickhead got bronze. Or Yuri’s perplexed musings while he had been standing there amid the flashes of the cameras and the national anthems being played, and he had idly wondered how the same country had managed to spawn such a moron like Leroy while at the same time being the motherland of the one he was talking to.

His  _ soulmate _ , for lack of a better term.

He hated referring to them as something so moronic, but there was really no other word for it. Yuri had never asked their name, and in a way he didn’t want to know. It was better this way. The anonymity allowed them both to be earnest, to hide nothing. And it was refreshing in a way no other relationship had been for him. His friendship with Beka was terribly precious to Yuri, but there were always barriers, there were always miles of unspoken words stretching between them. They both liked it that way. He could not imagine himself baring his soul to the boy who told him he had the eyes of a soldier. Because Yuri would only disappoint him. And that was something unbearable. Beka mattered. The thought of being diminished in his friend’s eyes was something that made fear crawl up his spine. It was the same terror that Yuri had when he thought of losing. Of being kicked off the podium and rolling on the ice. Pitiful. Small.

Meaningless.

He could not do that to himself. He could not let Beka see the weakness in him. 

The person on the other side of the world though, they had no expectations of him. And Yuri had none of them. They could not disappoint each other. It was safe. And easy. Incredibly enough, he liked it. He appreciated their humour, their silliness, and instead of being irritated at the idiocy of some remarks, Yuri found himself more often than not biting back laughter. And so they talked. For months to no end they kept writing on one another’s skin, and somehow it seemed like an unbreakable thread that pulled Yuri through the gruelling preparations for the new season. 

The one where he would have to compete against Victor. 

Yuri was so often on the brink of exhaustion, pushing himself harder and harder, sweating and bleeding on the barre and the rink, that his muscles and joints were pulled past their breaking point. But even when he went to sleep in pain and woke up stiff and aching all over, Yuri never stopped. He did everything in his power to keep himself on top, to be able to kick the old man’s ass and defend his GPF gold. He was so close to the breaking point, dangerously toeing that line with his toepicks. 

But the warmth spreading from his skin and the words blooming in inky twirls, grounded him.

They talked about stupid things most of the time. Cats and dogs, music, food. After a lot of prompting Yuri gave his grandfather a recipe for some Canadian dish called  _ poutine  _ and fuck it was good. So good his  _ dedushka  _ made  _ pirozhki  _ with it the next time Yuri visited him in Moscow to cheer on his rinkmates at the Rostelecom Cup. 

The Grand Prix Final rolled in too quickly. He had barely finished competing at the NHK Cup, and kicking the Canadian dickhead’s ass, and they were already flying to France to compete in the final. Yuri had never been prone to nerves, but this was the first time he competed against Victor. And for all that he had managed to break his world record at the last GPF, Yuri was not so sure he would be able to knock him off the centre of the podium and snatch that gold for himself. Especially since he was competing against Katsudon as well. He had managed to avoid them through the qualifiers, but now he had to face them. And the Canadian moron too. He may despise the ground he trod on, but he had to admit Leroy was serious competition. So everything taken into account, Yuri was not surprised when his usually steely nerves began to crumble as the short program approached. 

He managed to give an excellent performance, but it was still not enough to get him into first place. Victor had outscored him by backloading a jump at the last moment, and scoring a difference of less than a fucking point. It was enough to put him in the lead and knock Yuri to the second place. Fuck.

The forty-eight hours between the short and the free skate were the longest ever. Every minute seemed to drag endlessly, and it was only the steady stream of warmth and ink on his forearm that kept him from losing his shit and breaking down. He had to win. He  _ wanted  _ to win. Skating was everything, and if he wasn’t on top, what was he worth? There was only the ice for him, and it had become a battlefield. He had to endure. To prove them all that he could do it. To win.

But what if he didn’t? What if he failed? What if he popped his jumps and disgraced himself? What would he be worth then? He was already as bad as Katsudon with these stupid moronic thoughts that kept swirling through his mind. And his skin almost hurt from where he pressed the tip of the pen too hard as he vented his anxiety, untangling knot after knot, and yet never really telling them what was bothering him. Never saying  _ I made it into the history of figure skating as the only skater to win the GPF on their Senior debut, but I’m a wreck. _

Instead he wrote:

_ I want to punch something. Or someone. I’m so fucking angry. _

And they replied 

_ I’d ask what’s wrong, but there’s no way you’ll tell me, right? XD Seriously though, it’s never such a big deal as it seems… _ And on they went, telling Yuri that they sometimes felt the same, that sometimes the pressure was just too much and they felt like falling down the abyss, down down down but never quite reaching the bottom, never crashing their bones on hard rock. And it was perhaps harder, this endless fall, than the pain that awaited. Because fear made it greater, pushing out of the confines of their skull and oozing into every thought, every twitch of their muscles, every tremor that shook their hands. 

They wrote and while it did not banish the darkness that lingered just at the corner of his gaze, they gave him a reprieve from it. A chance to think at least somewhat straight.

And so Yuri had managed to soldier through the warm-ups and the endless preparations, Lilia pulling his hair and dosing it with hairspray, helping him into his costume. And at last pulling his white gloves on before he exited the locker room and made his way down the endless maze of corridors in the bowels of the arena. 

The calm resisted even as he waited in front of a television, watching Katsudon perform a fucking masterpiece of a free skate and no doubt shattering a record or two in the process. And it sustained him through the pig’s moment in the kiss and cry, the appearance of the results that  _ did  _ shatter a world record.

But when Leroy entered the rink, and Yuri realised he was skating next, it all exploded into a fine mist. And he choked.

He was fucking next. And there was no way he would be able to skate better than Katsudon. There was no fucking way. He didn’t have the stamina to backload  _ all  _ of his jumps, like the Japanese had done. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The air was suddenly very thin, and it seemed like he couldn’t get enough of it. Like his lungs refused to cooperate. And he needed to fucking breathe if he was going to skate. 

Lilia was eyeing him with a small frown, and Yuri tried to school his expression. Because there was no way in hell he was letting her see him fall apart. Letting anyone for that part. The only person whom Yuri had confided his fears too was a nameless, faceless someone who had the uncanny ability of making Yuri laugh, even when he was on the verge of a breakdown.

Without much ado he marched to an ISU official and plucked a pen from his pocket. The man widened his eyes, opening his mouth to protest, but Yuri was already walking aways, and pulling down his glove. 

_ Help _ , he wrote. And waited.

He stared at the skin for what seemed like an eternity, while the crowd out there cheered at the dickhead’s skating. He waited, willing the telltale tingle of heat to appear before the words began to curl over the thin skin on the back of his hand.

But there was nothing.

Irritation made its way through the throngs of fear. The one time he actually needed  some fucking support, they were not replying. 

They always replied.

Why were they being silent now?

Scowling in frustration he dropped the pen and yanked his glove back on. The television showed the Canadian moron exiting his final spin and stopping at the centre of the ice. The camera zoomed on him as he knelt and kissed the ice. He got back to his feet and did his moronic pose and Yuri’s mouth curled into an even deeper scowl. He was about to roll his eyes, when something caught his attention.

And what little air was there was suddenly slammed out of his lungs.

He stared. The camera zoomed off, but Yuri could still see it. It was imprinted on the back on his eyelids. And he couldn’t fucking breathe. On the back of Leroy’s stupid hand, of the Canadian dickhead who was the bane of Yuri’s existence, the douchebag supreme, the worst fucking moron he had ever the dubious grace of crossing paths with. On  _ his  _ fucking hand were the four fucking letters in smudged blue ink Yuri had written minutes before.

_ Help _


	5. Chapter 5

Jean was scared. Coils of terror were lodged inside his chest, curled like vines around his ribs, squeezing ever tighter with each day his skin remained pristinely unmarked. Four months of silence and only the memory of those last message burned in the back of his mind. A cry for help scribbled messily on the back of his hand. Jean had been skating when the familiar telltale warmth had appeared, and the moment he had stepped off the ice he had looked at it.

And stopped.

If it hadn’t been for his parents all but dragging him to the kiss and cry Jean would have ran away from the rink. But to do what? Even after all these months Jean hated the helplessness he had felt in that moment.

He had written back, of course. But his soulmate had never replied. And the fear lodged itself snugly under his breastbone. He knew they were not dead, but there were thousands of scenarios that ran through his mind. Thousands of ways in which they could have been hurt. And he had not been able to help them.

It felt horrible. Worse than anything. Because Jean would have given all he had, all he was to help them. To be there for them. But how could he when he didn’t even know who they were? All he had was a nationality, a love for _pirozhki_ and cats, and a temper that was impressive. A penchant for biting remarks that made Jean laugh. Or at least it used to.

Now there was only silence. And it was so achingly familiar Jean could feel himself slip into the well worn solitude that he had cloaked himself in for most of his life. But at the same time it was so profoundly different. Because there was guilt and concern bubbling under his skin and spilling in the words he scratched on his forearms, pressing the tip of the pen hard enough to hurt.

He hated himself for not being enough. His soulmate had needed him and Jean had been unable to do anything but stupidly write. And keep doing it. Even when hope withered.

Not knowing was the worst kind of hell.

Worry gnawed at his insides like a woodworm. He was supposed to practice for the upcoming season, but while his body did move the way he was instructed, his heart was not into it. He could not feel his routines. He could see the concern in his parents’ eyes. He had confided in them, of course, but there was nothing they could do to ease his mind.

Summer ended with Jean barely noticing. He had turned twenty one years old at some point but it had flown past his head. As autumn turned the leaves into vibrant shades of orange it brought Jean’s first competition. And nothing but gaping emptiness.

Skate America passed in a blur. He skated, spun, jumped, gave the audience the smiles and JJ signs they expected and then he was in the kiss and cry. First place after the short program. Gold after the free skate. The Canadian national anthem played in the background but Jean felt just the cold of the ice, the sharp pockets of emptiness where there had been warmth months before. Where words had bloomed and spidered over his tan skin.

Fear was heavier than the gold medal hanging around his neck. It had become a constant companion, and Jean was learning to live with it, with the greyness of indetermination. He was swimming through thick water, cold as ice, forever stuck between drowning and breaking the surface. Stuck between worlds.

The Tropheé de France came next and Jean could barely remember skating it. All he could picture was the sight of his pen pushing against his skin and words overflowing from the motions of his wrist. He wrote it all, leaving nothing unspoken. Much like that first time his soulmate had replied, Jean opened his heart and squeezed it dry, bleeding in blue ink.

A small, foolish part of him hoped it would do the trick again. It would elicit a reply. But his skin remained cold and clammy. Blank. And there was no surprise in that.

He won another gold. And he had no idea who he had skated against. Everything was a daze. Jean felt like a puppet being manoeuvred around, nudged to act when it was his cue, skating when he was told to, smiling, grinning. Wasting away with every breath.

He was waiting. For something, anything. But as he watched the French soil disappear beyond a sheet of clouds, Jean began to wonder if his wait would ever end. Or if this was it. If the rest of his days would be spent not knowing exactly what fate had befallen his soulmate. And if that was the case, shouldn’t he move on? Shouldn’t Jean get his life back into his hands? Even if he never got closure.

The sky was a picture perfect shade of light blue, and Jean began revisiting the past half year. He couldn’t go on like this. He moved through life like a wraith. It was not right. He could see the toll it took on his family, on Izzy who had stubbornly chosen to keep being a part of his life. Jean needed a real friend she had told him. And after the last GPF he had been glad to have her. Someone he could vent his frustrations, his terror to. Someone who would hold him when he wanted to pull at his hair in helplessness.

Someone who reminded him there was more to life than soulmates.

Rationally he knew as much. But how could he explain to her the joy of sharing a connection or the utter despair he had felt? He could not put it into words, and even music had failed him. He hadn’t been able to compose. Everything he played was too raw, to jagged like the edges of a ripped page.

Every day added a papercut on his heart, and slowly he bled. But it was time he let the tissue scar.

It was time to let go.

As the sky slowly darkened above the Atlantic ocean, Jean fished out a pen from his messenger bag. He uncapped it and stared at the blank expanse of his forearm. He knew what he wanted to write. But the words would not come.

Could he be selfish enough to say goodbye?

Grimacing he pressed the tip on his skin. He couldn’t.

_I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to tell you I cannot live like this, not knowing what happened to you. I wish I could. I wish I were selfish enough. But I’m an idiot._

He rolled the sleeve back down and closed his eyes, letting the rattling of the engines lull him to sleep. The sounds were drifting into a buzz, and unconsciousness tugged insistently at his drifting mind. He was almost asleep when something jolted him awake.

A warmth.

On his arm.

His heart was in his throat and his eyes were impossibly wide. He lifted the sleeve and it was there.

Jean almost cried out.

It was there.

_Yes, you’re an idiot._


	6. Chapter 6

Yuri was pissed off. It wasn’t the cursing and roundhouse kicking kind of anger. He felt a cold kind of fury that slowly rose from the pit of his stomach and up his chest until it filled every crevice of his lungs with the overwhelming urge to set everything on fire. Because he may have a short fuse when it came to anger, but this was way beyond it. A whole fucking year of all but literally bleeding on the ice and barre, of working on his routines because he would be competing against Victor. A year of sacrifices greater than any he had been forced to make in his career, relinquishing everything in order to have a chance to beat the Living Legend. A year of all this shit and he didn’t make the podium? He didn’t even get a fucking bronze. No, the Canadian dickhead got that. 

Incidentally he was the fucking root of the problem. 

Because Yuri had done one of the worst performances of his skating career, comparable to the pitiful excuse for skating Katsudon’s routines had been in Sochi. And all because Yuri had been too fucking distracted by the realisation that his fucking  _ soulmate _ was none other that JJ fucking Leroy.

His lips curled in a disgusted sneer. It was good Yuri didn’t believe in all that shit, because if he had to face the prospect of the Canadian moron being the person he was  _ meant  _ to be, he might have truly lost it there and then. And that fuelled his rage, like gasoline being poured over a fire. He had been talking to that idiot for the better part of the past year. Yuri he had confided in him, sharing things he had never shared with anyone. His weaknesses, his fears, his stupid fucking helplessness. To Leroy! He had opened up to the same conceited asshole who mocked him for not being the epitome of cishet masculinity.  _ Ladies first.  _ Only the threat of disqualification had stopped Yuri from punching away that stupid sneer off his face at the Rostelecom last year.

He moved his brush through his hair in vicious strokes, tugging at the knots and the clumps of gel and hairspray that had been keeping his hair in its updo during the competition. He wanted to pull it out with all the roots, to give an outlet to the explosive mixture of anger and shame that was bubbling dangerously under his skin. But he liked his hair, the way it fell just past his shoulders. The shimmer it got when it was properly combed. So he breathed through his nose, feeling the anger scorch its way out, hot against his skin.

Yuri clutched the comb in his fist. He felt betrayed. He felt like fate or whatever power above was mocking him, and Yuri had fallen for the joke, actually playing along rather than ignoring the scribbles on his skin like he had done for nearly his whole life. The moron didn’t know it was Yuri he had been talking to, but the silver lining tasted bland on his tongue, almost like an empty pleasantry while shame grew stronger with each memory he replayed, with each sentence he reminisced writing, spilling out secrets in tidbits, letting the moron see things  _ no one  _ was supposed to see. 

How could he have been so stupid?  

Trusting his secrets with stranger. One who turned up being the most obnoxious dickhead he knew. And who kept writing on his skin.

The moron had been doing so for the past hours, and Yuri had to wonder how the hell did the idiot manage to find time to cover his skin in variations of excuses and gross bullshit when there were interviews and shit to be done after the medal ceremony. Now that Yuri knew  _ who  _  was on the other side, he no longer believed a word of it. Yuri knew who JJ leroy was, King JJ the moron supreme, the most self-assured, self-centred idiot in the skating circuit. And there was no way he was the same nice person he had been talking to. The one who offered support instead of making Yuri feel ashamed of his shortcomings. Who made him snort with laughter too often, cheering his days when everything threatened to become too much. Who was just there, a warm presence somewhere in the world, going about their life but sharing random bits and impressions with Yuri. 

He could not think of them as the same person. Leroy had faked it.

And that fuelled Yuri’s rage more than missing the podium, more than the shame he felt at having opened his heart to his greatest rival. Yuri felt like a fool. And that stung deep.

But now he had learned his lesson. There was no fucking way he was going to be so stupid in the future. There was no way in hell Yuri would answer any more of that bullshit. If Leroy wanted to keep writing, Yuri could not stop him. 

Well, he  _ coudl _ , but that would entail revealing his identity and that was just not going to happen. He sneered, looking at his forearm as more letters bloomed on the skin. He was going to have to endure the constant stream of warmth appearing on random spots on his body. And the stupid messages.

Hopefully the idiot would eventually stop. It was bound to happen sooner or later. He just had to persist.

And he did. As the GPF trailed to its inevitable end and Yuri returned to Russia to fight for his spot on the podium at Nationals, and then Europeans, he became apt at ignoring the Canadian’s lengthy messages. He didn’t even read them any more. Instead he wore long sleeves along with his gloves during the hours he spent training on the ice. Every message would wash off Leroy’s skin at some point, and it would disappeared from Yuri’s. 

It went on like that for months. March trudged to an end, breezing through Yuri’s seventeenth birthday and bringing him to his second World Championship. Yuri skated well, better than ever and after a shattered record he landed a silver medal, only several points behind Victor. Yuri kicked the Leroy’’s ass off the podium with glee, so happy to have outscored him, and moreso when Katsudon surpassed him. It felt good to kick his ass. It felt empowering.

It was empty.

When the silence of the locker room enveloped him, Yuri could not wash away the taste of bile from his tongue. Because it had been hardly a fight. Leroy had looked dejected even before the official practices rolled in, and as the competition began he skated with a lackluster enthusiasm that reeked of play pretend. There was not fight in him, no cockiness, just a pale glamour of JJ Style that did nothing to hide the emptiness behind it. 

If it had been any other skater Yuri would have felt to urge to kick their ass until they got a grip of themselves. Like he had done with Katsudon in Sochi. Provoking a reaction, making them fight back.But this was Leroy. He was not going to spend an shred of energy for him. He was actually fucking elated the moron was no longer in his way.

When he stared at the darkness of the ceiling above him, the generic hotel room lamp looking at him dead in its lack of light, Yuri had to admit himself that maybe he wasn’t. 

He wasn’t happy with it. And even less with himself for feeling this way. 

The lamp kept looking at him, milky white glass and nothing else, and Yuri groaned, punching his pillow. He  _ was  _ not going to care about what happened to Leroy. He wasn’t.

He did, but as summer passed in a flurry of learning new choreographies Yuri managed to somehow distract himself. He even succeeded in keeping himself from reading the messages that still persistently appeared on his skin. Wearing short sleeves made it harder not to look as blue or black ink twirled over his skin. Every now and then Yuri caved in, sneaking a glance. 

The messages Leroy left for him were downright pathetic. Filled with such a gross amount of worry and self-recrimination that Yuri wanted to gag.

Or maybe it was his stomach rolling as guilt knotted it.

He refused to ponder it, letting himself get swept away by the new season and the competitions he needed to ace in order to get a chance to reclaim the GPF gold he had earned in Barcelona.

It was mid November when it became impossible to ignore.

He had just finished rewatching the clips from the Tropheé de France, paying close attention to the skaters he may face in the final. Leroy was the only serious threat amongst those who had medalled. His skating was impeccable. But when the camera zoomed on his face, there was no self-satisfying grin.

Only blankness. 

A vacuum of emotion, like every colour had been drained from him and where there had been garish reds and greens and violets, now there was just the washed up blue of his dulled eyes and a bleak pallor on his usually tanned skin. He looked like shit. But why should Yuri care? Why should he give a fuck if the moron looked depressed? Never mind Yuri was fairly sure it was fucking connected to the plethora of messages he had ignored, to the never ending stream of worry and self-blame that had marked his skin for nearly a year. It was none of his business if Leroy didn’t know better than to get attached to a perfect stranger.

So why did he felt guilty?

And why did it hurt to read his latest message as it appeared on his skin? The one where the moron told him he wanted to say goodbye, to stop writing to him because he couldn’t live like that, not knowing what had happened to Yuri. And where he admitted being selfish instead, and not doing it. The one where he called himself an idiot.

Which he was. He was the worst kind of idiot. The kind that actually cared what happened to someone they didn’t know, someone who was supposed to be their match just by virtue of being able to communicate through their skin. It was a big steaming load of bullshit.

But the moron apparently believed in it. And felt hurt by Yuri’s silence.

He barely registered his actions as he fished a pen from his backpack and scribbled angrily on his skin.

_ Yes, you’re an idiot. _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I have honestly no idea how long this is going to be. It could be 2 more chapters, or 4. I sure hope it won't be 6! XD It all depends on whether Yuri collaborates. Wish me good luck! XD


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating daily, who would have thought? The muse is fickle, but sometimes she collaborates. (Unlike Yuri. Don't trust the kitten, he changes plots with the same ease he lands a Salchow). XD

 

 

Jean could not breathe. His heart was pumping to fast it looked about to explode. Everything, all the worries, all the murky tendrils of self-hatred which had pooled in the past year suddenly slammed into the back of his breastbone. Suspended in the moment only to burn in a flash of light as the words his soulmate had written kept staring at him. Calling him an idiot. Jean couldn’t force his lungs to breathe because he was afraid if he moved, if he all but blinked it would all disappear and he would be thrown back into a world where he had no idea what fate had befallen them. 

His soulmate. The one person that mattered above everyone else. 

Something must had shown on his face because a moment later he was being asked if he was alright by a slightly concerned flight assistant. Jean tried to flash her his trademark grin, croaking that everything was okay, but it was unconvincing at best. She frowned, eyeing him warily before moving on. And Jean struggled to get back some of his composure. He had a long flight ahead. And his soulmate had written to him. He had to answer. Widening his eyes he pushed the sleeve further up his arm and hovered with the tip of his pen above his skin. What should he write. Should he express his gratefulness that they were fine? Should he tell them about the staccato of his heartbeat? Or the way air still seemed to have difficulty filling his chest even as excitement mingled with relief in a bubbling mixture that threatened to make him burst at the seams? Should he tell the how overwhelmed he was feeling?

_ The flight assistant is looking worriedly at me,  _ was what he wrote instead. He stared at the words until his soulmate’s messy scrawl started to twist on his skin.

_ Are you sure it’s not annoyance? I mean she has to put up with YOU, so it’s legit,  _ they told him, and Jean could almost hear the sarcasm dripping from the words. 

He had missed this. Terribly. And in all the worry for his soulmate’s well-being he had not acknowledged the more selfish things he longed for. The sharp wit, the no-nonsense attitude, the constant need to pull him down a peg or two. And god he liked it. He knew sometimes he exaggerated in his over-confidence, and it wasn’t always a mask for the anxiety that lurked beneath. After telling himself for so long he was the best sometimes he genuinely believed it. Even when it wasn’t true. It was hard to find a balance between confidence and arrogance. Jean had always struggled it. But his soulmate knew exactly when and where to hit. He never missed.

Smiling, Jean replied

_ Hey! I’m charming and people like me. _

He may appreciate his soulmate’s candid attitude, but he was not going down without a fight. Where was the fun in that. 

Jean set aside all the questions that still lingered at the forefront of his mind. The need to understand the reason why they had kept radio silence for nearly a year. And why they were answering now. Because they were replying. And it was the only thing that mattered now.

A wave of heat and a new message appeared on the underside of his forearm.

_ People are stupid. You grin at them and they forget what a moron you are. _

Jean shook his head, grinning.

_ You act like you’ve met me,  _ he wrote, baffled at the accuracy of his soulmate’s intuition. 

He could have never anticipated the reply he got.

_ That’s because I have met you, idiot.  _

Oh. He stared at the message, cogs turning fast. When had they met? Who were they? If they met it meant Jean knew them. He could feel his heart increase pace, impossibly so. He wanted to ask them this and more more. Because Jean had always dreamed of meeting his soulmate, and yet he stopped himself from imagining. It had taken them so long to start replying to him, and everything had hung so precariously, Jean had not allowed himself the luxury of dreaming. But now it was there, it was close. He knew them. They met.

They had met.

And yet, even as excitement fluttered through him, gaining speed at every breath, there was a sobering weight starting to drop on him. 

They knew who Jean was. They knew he was their soulmate. But they had not introduced themselves. He could claim they were shy, but after months of correspondence, Jean knew they were anything but.

Which meant they didn’t  _ want  _ to.

He blinked several time, unpeeling his gaze from where it lingered on his skin, and turning his eyes towards the endless expanse of sky beyond the window. He stared at it for the longest time, trying to sort through his thoughts. To make some sense out of it all.

Eventually the pieces began to fall into place, and Jean averted his eyes, looking back  at the pen still clutched in his fist. His eyes darted to his exposed forearm and he saw most of the messages were gone. 

Erased.

He swallowed, twirling the pen in his hold and starting to write

_ That’s why you stopped replying.  _ It was not a question. He swallowed down the bile and continued writing _ I’m sorry I disappointed you. I wish I didn’t, but it’s okay I guess. I would still like to keep talking to you. We don’t have to meet ever again if you don’t want to. I mean, I’d love to know who you are, but this is more important. Please. _

He barely had the room to fill at the word in, and he ended up filling his palm with his looping handwriting. His breaths were shallow now and there was an undercurrent of desperation in the way the letters became almost jagged towards the end. Because even as he wrote his realisation became clearer and clearer. And he was willing to forfeit the chance to ever know who they were. He was willing to spend the rest of his days alone. As long as he could have at least this. This connection.

They did not answer for the longest time and Jean fell into a fitful sleep. He dreamt of falling. He always dreamt of falling when the pressure became too much. But this was different. It was worse. And as the plane jolted, hit by a turbulence, Jean gasped awake, disoriented for a moment, mind stuck in the lingering darkness between the nightmare and the reality of being suspended above an ocean, nothing but physics keeping them from crashing down. From falling.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to control his breathing. In. And out. Rinse and repeat. In. Out. Like gliding on the ice. In and out. Like the change of foot in a mohawk. Or the takeoff in a toe assisted jump. In and out. The turbulence calmed, almost in synchronicity with his breaths. Jean opened his eyes, looking at the white knuckled grip of his finger on the fabric of his hoodie. And the pen which had somehow ended tucked between the folds of the red fabric. 

He was breathing. Everything was fine. He glanced at his watch to see the time. They had still two more hours until they landed in Montreal. He could make it. 

Music played calmly from his headphones, a relaxing instrumental that did wonders for his frayed nerves. His soulmate was still silent, and Jean knew he would have to prepare for the possibility they would never reply. The mere idea of never hearing from them hurt somewhere deep, a slicing pain that was not dulled by all the months of silence. Because there had been worry before, but this was rejection. It stung on a healthy patch of his emotions. And they bled. 

He wondered if he should ask them directly. A yes or no question to get closure. To be able to mourn the connection. 

But even as the flight neared its end and the flight assistant asked them to put their seatbelts on, Jean could not stop hoping. 

The plane began to descend, the ground getting closer and closer, the shapes of buildings and streets small underneath them, like toys. And then they were closing on the tarmac, and the last lurch shook him as they landed. Jean exhaled the same breath he always held during touchdown. And then he leaned back on the seat. It would take them a while before he had to get up and fetch his luggage from the overhead compartment. 

They had slowed down to a stop and the passengers on the aisle seats were starting to get up. Jean quietly took his messenger bag and put it on his knees while he waited for the first wave of impatient passengers to leave. As the worst of the crowd began trickling out of the plane, Jean stood up and followed suit, fetching his luggage and moving down the aisle and out of the plane. 

A couple of minutes later he was setting his feet back on Canadian ground. And it felt as good as always. He was home.

Jean had just exhaled a long breath when his skin suddenly tingled. Wide-eyed, he gingerly pulled the hem of his sleeve up his arm. It was a mess of Jean’s messages, thickly crammed with words weaving between themselves. A chaos that mirrored his emotions, but he barely noticed it. Because his eyes were drawn to the single sentence glaring at him from the pit of his elbow.

_ Whatever, we can talk. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uploading from mobile. I hope it doesn't mess the formating  
> :O  
> I'd like to thank you all for the astounding amount of comments. I'm blushing like a schoolgirl. <3
> 
> Minor edit 30/03/2017

 

 

Yuri couldn’t stand Leroy. From the first moment he had crossed paths with him Yuri had known he was an entitled shithead who got everything served on a fucking silver platter.

Healthy rivalry had soon been replaced by a vicious loathing that sometimes surprised him. But then Yuri would remember that Leroy did not have to keep winning because it was the only way to make sure his Grandfather had enough to get by. That he didn’t know the meaning of dedication because everything was just easy for him. He was just a stupid, conceited, arrogant, and self-absorbed dickhead who sure didn’t struggle to fall asleep at night because his mind was riddled with thoughts and worries that squirmed and coiled tightly around his windpipe, making it hard to breathe.

No, Yuri had been sure Leroy did not know the sour taste of disappointment. Or the numbness that crept up his bones when people inevitably walked away. Leroy with his picture perfect family and picture perfect life who took everything for granted had no fucking clue of what it truly meant to fight.

Had he ever had to really work for anything?

So yes, Yuri admitted to himself that a part of him had been happy to see him brought down to his knees Even if Yuri had never intended to. It was karma or some shit. The only silver lining in this travesty of a soulmate bullshit. Without meaning to Yuri had stomped all over Leroy’s immaculate life, hurting him and squeezing out all that fake cheerfulness and patented grins.

It should have felt like a fucking triumph.

But it didn’t.

And when _The flight assistant is looking worriedly at me,_ appeared on his skin Yuri could read the weight of his actions. Or inactions, for that part. Because for all that he loathed the moron and everything he represented, Yuri was unable to banish guilt from scissoring its way through his chest. The unspoken was blatantly clear, even if Yuri rolled his eyes at the poor attempt at breaking the tension.

 _Are you sure it’s not annoyance? I mean she has to put up with_ _you_ _, so it’s legit,_ he replied, underlining the _you_ with a thick stroke of ink. And Yuri was merely stating the truth.

Leroy wasted no time, replying with a

_Hey! I’m charming and people like me._

_People are stupid,_ he scribbled as soon as he had finished reading his message. His hands moved fast explaining to the moron that it had nothing to do with his personality and everything to do with the rampant idiocy of the people who surrounded them. Leroy would grin at them and their brains suddenly turned to mush.

His skin reddened under the onslaught of the pen, but Yuri wanted the idiot to know that he was nothing special.

 _You act like you’ve met me_ , was the reply he got.

Yuri blinked, rereading his words. A part of him recoiled at the amount of information he had given away.

But another part just shrugged. Because who fucking cared? Yuri didn’t believe in this soulmate shit and if Leroy did, good riddance to him. The notion that he was meant to spend the rest of his days at Leroy’s side made him snort. Calling it asinine was a fucking understatement. He had no desire to disclose his identity, Leroy was already too fucking annoying as he was. But there was no reason to hide the fact that he was acquainted to him.

In a way Yuri had a vantage point over him. He knew his identity whereas Leroy didn’t.

His lips curled into a grimace that bordered on a smirk, and he wrote.

_That’s because I have met you, idiot._

After that there was silence. Yuri was almost disappointed. But he was also relieved. It was late and he had to rest. The next morning he had practice.

He stretched his arms above his head, feeling the joints pop pleasantly.

A shower and then sleep.

As he brushed his teeth in the steamy bathroom, Yuri tried to wash away the bitter taste of remorse from his tongue, but it lingered. It was just fucking Leroy. He shouldn’t care about him. He had no obligation to him. There was no fucking reason to keep in contact, to reply sooner.

There wasn’t.

Lying to himself was not a satisfying task and when he dropped on the mattress, pulling the duvet above his body, Yuri gave up.

He had acted like a dick.

In fact, he had outdicked Leroy with his behaviour. And wasn’t that an empty victory.

He closed his eyes, giving in to a round of mental self-flagellation that lulled him into sleep. Several hours later he woke up with a start, his dreams less than pleasant Yuri sat leaning on the headboard of the bed.

He switched the lamp on, and as the motion moved the sleeve of his striped pyjama top, he saw ink. A tug pulled the sleeve up and he read.

_ That’s why you stopped replying.  _ Leroy had written, and then curling onwards  _ I’m sorry I disappointed you. I wish I didn’t, but it’s okay I guess.  _

His words were messier as he had gone on  _ I would still like to keep talking to you. We don’t have to meet ever again if you don’t want to. I mean, I’d love to know who you are, but this is more important.  _ A  full-stop that looked like a heartbeat of pause and then  _ Please. _

Guilt was a terrible force, because Yuri did not even stop for a second before he grabbed his pen. He wanted to tell him that he didn’t like him, that he didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

He settled for

_Whatever, we can talk._

And they did.

It was not as easy as it had been before. Now that he knew who he was talking to Yuri was loath to reveal anything to his greatest rival. The latter had no such compulsion. Now that he knew Yuri was in the know, he spoke with even greater freedom about his life, his parents, skating, his siblings. Every fucking detail of his life, if it was worth a single mention ended up on his skin _._

It was as irritating as it was surprisingly endearing.

Yuri concluded that the pressure of the skating season must be getting to him. Because there was no fucking was he would _ever_ normally find the moron _endearing_. The NHK Cup came and went and Yuri qualified for the GPF, like Leroy. Which meant he would have to face him. In less than a fortnight.

Yuri didn’t know why he was so nervous. It was not the first competition they had in common since Yuri had discovered Jean was the person on the other side of the connection. And yet it felt different.

Because in the past weeks Yuri had gotten used to talking to Leroy through their connection. But he would be seeing him in the flesh. And the thought made something squirm in the pit of his stomach.

He was being an idiot.


	9. Chapter 9

Jean was buzzing with energy. The past two weeks had been surreal for him. He was tethering between the excitement of talking to his soulmate, of being able to share earnestly everything, because they knew who he was so there was no reason to pace himself, and the creeping despair that stemmed from it. His soulmate knew him and they really didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Even talking to him was a small concession they had agreed to only after Jean had pleaded them. So it was a strange mixture of emotions that sizzled in his veins and filled him with restlessness. A subtle rush that moved like a strong undercurrent, and his body translated it on the ice. 

The large cavelike dome of the practice rink stretched above him as he moved sharply, going through his free skate once again. He had placed second after the short program, a couple of points behind Plisetsky, and with Katsuki breathing down his neck from the third place. Jean had a good shot at the podium, even at gold with a bit of luck. Jean skated with everything still sizzling and bubbling inside him, going through the motions with well-practised ease and yet finding something new in them. A new shape in the same extension of his leg, a different image in the centripetal force that powered his spins. It was the same old routine he had skated thousands of times, and yet it felt entirely different from any other time he had skated it before.

Perhaps it was the confusion in him, or the strange sense of anticipation that was gripping him, but as the music trailed to an end and Jean moved to the side of the rink, giving space to Plisetsky who was next, Jean was still dazed by his own performance. So when the younger skater skated by him and gave Jean a half aborted nod of greeting, it took a moment for the motion to sink in. And when he made to wave at him, Plisetsky was already in his starting pose, ignoring everything except for the first notes of the music.  

Jean blinked twice at the whole situation, skating next to the border. It was truly odd. Ever since their first competition at Skate America two seasons ago, Plisetsky and him had not gotten along. Or to be precise, the former had not wanted anything to do with Jean no matter how many times he had tried to strike conversation. Every time Jean had tried to lighten the atmosphere the Russian’s face had flushed with anger. So it was naturally startling to see him behaving in a non hostile way towards Jean. 

Not that he minded. It was a good thing. But that didn’t make it any less puzzling.

Yuri’s routine finished a couple of minutes later and while Jean watched him, time seemed to stretch. And like an elastic band snapping back fast, it propelled him through the last day of competition. Jean barely registered anything in the rush. The reporters in front of the arena, the screaming fans, the long corridors leading to the locker rooms, and then last minute arrangements, a tear in his costume and running to the seamstress who was on duty for emergencies, fixing the fabric, making it onto the ice. Skating. Flying. Forgetting himself until he was sitting in the kiss and cry and gaping at his score.

A personal best, and a guaranteed silver medal. 

Jean’s eyes were wide open, and he could feel his breath lost somewhere in his windpipe. He knew he had skated flawlessly, but he had no idea it had been that good. Staring at the screen he was unable to stop himself from grinning stupidly and making his trademark sign at the camera. He had outdone himself. And now everything hung on Plisetsky’s performance. 

The Russian had just gotten on the ice, and Jean decided to watch him skate. 

Half a minute into his performance Jean knew it was worth making his muscles suffer for a while longer by standing behind the barrier still in his skates. Because Plisetsky was amazing. 

He always skated well, but there was something visceral in the way he was moving now. It reminded Jean of the honesty Katsuki spilled over the rink. But where the Japanese weaved a delicate net of emotions, Plisetsky was carving them into the ice. He clawed his way into a spin, pounced into a Salchow and left only a trail of chaos in his wake. 

Jean leaned into the barrier, captivated by the way he moved. 

It was amazing. Yuri was like a meteor blazing through the ice, sending shards flying as he abruptly veered in time with the music. Jean watched him mesmerised and for a brief moment Plisetsky caught his stare. Jean felt a smile curl his lips just his green eyes broke the gaze and he skated on. A bracket turn and then Plisetsky was moving backwards and swinging his leg to turn and step up into an Axel. Yuri had barely completed the third rotation when Jean inhaled sharply. He was going to fall. A heartbeat later the blond was crashing badly onto the ice and Jean gripped the edge of the barrier, watching with wide eyes Yuri roll twice before getting back to his feet. 

It only took him a couple of beats to get back on track with the choreography, but the damage was done. 

Jean was going to win gold.

He exhaled the breath that had caught in his lungs and watched Yuri finish his routine, feeling a strange emptiness where happiness should have bubbled. And later when he stood on the podium listening to the Canadian national anthem, Jean felt bitterness pool in the pit of his stomach. Not quite guilt, but near. Strong enough to make the medal feel like a noose around his neck. Because the way Plisetsky had skated his free had been worthy of the gold that lay on Jean’s chest.

But he had fallen on that jump and Jean beat him. 

It felt wrong.

He glanced at the blond on his right. Yuri was staring ahead with a blank expression on his face. And the bruise blooming on his cheek from the fall gave it a grave quality. Seeing the scraped skin and purpling puffiness made him wince, but it was the void in Plisetsky’s normally wild eyes that tugged at Jean’s heartstrings and made him want to tell him that he had deserved to win. That that medal should be his. And maybe he should give it to him. Maybe he should forfeit that victory, at least symbolically. 

He never got the chance. 

The moment he stepped off the podium Plisetsky made himself scarce, and Jean ended up being dragged to interview after interview, everyone eager to have a piece of the ever-grinning King JJ.

By the time he got back to his room, and washed off all the weariness of the day, Jean felt wrung out and torn by a gnawing guilt that gave him no respite. 

He didn’t think much before he picked a pen from his bedside table and started to write on his forearm

_ I won the GPF today but I should have gotten silver.  _

He needed his soulmate’s no nonsense attitude right now. He needed to be told he was being an idiot. 

But when the tingle of warmth signalled they were replying, he got none of the things he needed.

_ Yes, you’re right. You shouldn’t have won today,  _ wrote his soulmate and Jean widened his eyes. They had watched him skate. 

His heart skipped a beat.

_ You’ve watched me?  _

The reply came a moment later.

_ Obviously. And I stand by what I said, you shouldn’t have won.  _

_ I know. Plisetsky’s free was something else. If he hadn’t popped that Axel he would have broken a record,  _  he replied, writing on the inside of his forearm, and ending up all the way up his wrist and into his palm.  _ I wanted to give him my medal after the ceremony, you know? He really deserved it. Maybe I’ll do it after the banquet. I just hope he won’t think I’m pitying him. Cause I’m not. He was amazing. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him when he skated.    _

He lifted the pen from his skin, and watched his messy scrawl. The curves and angles of the letters were a picture of the distress he was feeling. It was not the first time someone had been a better skater than himself and yet scored lesser than Jean. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Yuri had skated and how empty expression had been on the podium. How wrong. 

_ He deserves my gold _ , he wrote, repeating himself in spite of all that was still on display on Jean’s skin. 

All the words his soulmate was not responding to. 

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for something that could be interpreted as a form of mild (if there even is such a thing?) self-harm. If you thing you might be triggered I suggest skipping the third paragraph ( _"But Yuri could [...] pit of his stomach"_ ) <3

 

Yuri was boiling with fury. It streamed like molten wax under his skin, burning everything it touched and lingering even as it cooled. Sticking stubbornly to him, and pulling, tearing. Not painful enough to wash off the sizzling of thoughts that kept pushing at the inside of his skull, and yet lingering with a discomfort that only got worse as Yuri sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall ahead. His skin still tingled with the echo of the warmth that had accompanied Leroy’s scribbles, and he couldn’t help his lips from curling into a grimace. 

Yes, he should have won gold, he should have broken a fucking record. But he didn’t. And the disappointment was something monstrous inside him. Something that made him ache to put on his skates and scream it out on the ice. To carve the disappointment and regret deep into the hard surface of the rink, until all the fucking anger became nothing but sharp shards of ice on the edge of his skates. 

But Yuri could still feel the impact of it on his face. And it soured the thought, leaving an aftertaste of bile on his tongue. His fingers lifted to his cheek, still slightly puffy and tender. He poked with his finger, and almost revelled in the pain that pulsed through it. It flared, lashing out as he poked it again, a strange satisfaction coiling darkly in the pit of his stomach.

He gnashed his teeth, feeling his jaw pop at the motion. He didn’t know what he hated more, himself for being a fucking disappointment, or the words that winded over his forearm and onto his palm. Because something had clawed at his stomach when Leroy reminded him that he could have broken a record if he hadn’t fucked up that triple Axel, something that tasted like shame, and it only got sourer when the moron made it impossible to hate him.

He had done so ever since that first message, but Yuri had allowed himself the luxury of denial. At least until this. Until this earnest dickhead made Yuri  _ feel bad  _ for having acted like a dick in the past year. Made Yuri wish he  _ had  _ won that gold, and proven him right.

It was fundamentally wrong. And Yuri could not deal with this. Not now.

Not when he knew that he had gotten distracted in one of the most important moments of the season. That it was entirely his fucking fault he had missed the chance for gold. He could not deal with this confusion, the mess his thoughts on Leroy had become, when shame coiled inside him like a snake, striking in attack every time he tried to unravel it. When he tried to calm himself down and swallow it down. Yuri felt on the verge of bursting. He wanted to scream, to tear the room apart, to punch someone. He wanted it all to stop. 

He didn’t understand how Katsudon had been able to hide in a fucking bathroom stall and cry when he had fucked himself up in Sochi. Just the thought of being sad, of  _ pitying  _ himself when he had no one but himself to blame for his fucking defeat made his anger reach a new high.

And on top of it all he couldn’t even be angry with Leroy, like he had always been. 

He wished he could insult him. For existing, for being a moron, for beating him, for wanting to give Yuri his gold medal. But he couldn’t. Because Leroy really believed Yuri should have won. 

And that made it all worse. 

If he couldn’t hate him, what did he feel? 

Yuri heaved out a breath, feeling the walls of his hotel room start to close on him. And he felt himself suffocate. The more he looked at the pastel wallpaper the stronger he felt the urge to crash the bedside lamp onto it. To watch it break into a thousand fucking pieces. But paying for damage on his room was not on the fucking budget list. Not when his grandfather needed a new television. Yuri was not going to spend the money he got from his endorsements onto something so fucking childish. No matter how much he wanted to smash everything until it broke.

So he tapped his foot on the rug, breathing hard. 

He needed to get the fuck out of this room, he decided. He needed to do something, go somewhere. Anything as long as it led him out of this fuckng room. But even as he took his phone out he knew he didn’t want to spend the evening with Victor and Katsudon. Or any of the other skaters, for that part. Beka had not made to the final this year. And there was no one he wanted to see. 

Feeling restlessness move like a living thing inside, Yuri got up to his feet and began pacing. One wall to the other, and then across. He stomped angrily back and forth. Wall to wall. The angry sound of his bare feet on the floor was the only thing separating him from the deep fucking pit of self-hatred he felt spreading under his feet with each step. And he clung to it, feeling like a caged animal, and yet intuitively knowing he should try to calm himself down. He was no longer fifteen. He could control himself.

Right?

Eventually he stopped in front of the tall mirror on the wall and took stock of his appearance. There was a wild look in his eyes that almost startled him. They were blazing with a mad fury which twistedly matched the purpling bruise on his cheek. He looked exactly the way he felt. And he hated it.

Yuri squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his nails in the flesh of his palms. He was not used to this. To have no one to blame but himself. And to know without a shade of doubt it was his fucking fault alone. That all the sweat and blood he had poured on the ice had been for naught. That he had skated a record breaking performance and then destroyed it with a  _ triple Axel.  _ A fucking triple Axel. Yuri had been able to land that jump in Juniors. Fuck, Yuri could land one with his eyes closed, even fucking do so in this room. On the spur of the moment, he abruptly turned and strode to the door of his suite. Then he turned and took off into a sprint. 

It was downright moronic. There was not enough space in the room, and he was going to crash on the furniture. A curse hit the back of his teeth but he swept his leg and leapt off. He turned once, twice, thrice. Half a turn, and then he was landing. He pushed his hands forward as the momentum threatened to slam him into the wall. His balance barely held and he collided with the wallpaper, his wrist taking the brunt of it before he slid onto his knees, panting.

There was a lump forming in his throat and it pushed upwards as he heaved his breaths, rubbing his fingers over his wrist. Gritting his teeth he rotated it to see if he had sprained it, but to his relief it looked only bruised. One more to add to the collection, he thought with disgust. One more bruise he was solely responsible for. 

What a fucking idiot he was.

Over the aching wrist Leroy’s words still stared back at him.  _ He was amazing _ , Leroy had written, and Yuri’s fingers clenched. 

He  _ had  _ been fucking amazing. He was a fucking monster on the ice. 

Heaving his chest as his heartbeat returned to normal, and ignoring the throbbing in his wrist, Yuri’s eyes trailed once again over the words. Over the curves and spikes that harshly reminded him the idiot had no idea who he was corresponding with. Because Leroy didn’t know he was speaking with Yuri. He had no fucking clue that when he told him he had been unable to keep his eyes off him, Leroy was telling it to him.  

The lump in his throat became a knot in his stomach and Yuri closed his eyes for a moment, flaring his nostrils. 

A heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears. Another. He opened his eyes, and hissed a curse. Then he jumped back to his feet and fished the pen from bedcovers in a quick motion.

Before he had time to change his mind he wrote on the back of his hand

_ You want to know who I am? _

He barely lifted the tip of the pen from his skin when words began spidering underneath it

_ Yes! Of course!  _ Leroy wrote. More words followed but Yuri cut him mid sentence

_ Fine, be in the lobby in 10. _

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still in awe at the amount of feedback and squeals I got on the previous chapter! Wow. :O  
> This chapter is dedicated to all of you. <3

 

Jean was staring at the top of his hand, not quite sure if what he was seeing was true. He could feel his heart thump loudly against his ribs, and his mind was drawing an uncharacteristic blank. Something akin to white noise buzzed in the background. And Jean felt as if his whole world had been tilted off its axis. He traced the spidery letters with his finger. His palms were sweaty and he felt his skin moisten as he touched it. But the ink stayed there. Pristine. 

His soulmate wanted to meet him. 

The person on the other side of the connection, the one who was meant for Jean, had told him to be in the lobby in ten minutes. And the reality of the situation refused to settle in. Because after all he had endured, all the long years of silence, and the knowledge that his soulmate had refused to talk to him once they had found out who Jean was, after all this they wanted to meet him. 

And it was surreal.

But as the thumping in his chest refused to quiet, and the message on his hand did not fade, Jean felt the chilly tendrils of awareness crawl up his skin. It was happening, wasn’t it? He was  _ not  _ trapped in a dream. 

His soulmate  _ really  _ wanted to meet him.

A jolt of panic shot through his spine. And his eyes widened. Because if this was truly not a reverie then Jean had only ten minutes. 

Ten minutes of which he had wasted way too many already.

In a swift motion he was on his feet, frantically tugging off his clothes and looking for something presentable to wear. He was going to  _ meet his soulmate. _ Nevermind they already knew who he was, he still wanted to make a good impression on them. Maybe even rectify the skewered one they already had of him. 

His heart was beating a quick step, and time was flying too fast. He was going to be late. 

Jean threw a pair of jeans and a red shirt on. He glanced in the mirror, and grimaced. His hair was a mess and while his outfit was better than the sweatpants he had been wearing half a minute before, it was still not as good as it should be. But he had no time. Cursing lightly under his breath, he grabbed his phone and key card, and sprinted out of his room. 

He had just opened the door when he ran back to take the pen from the bedside table.

The elevator ride was excruciatingly slow. Jean made use of the mirror to try and push his locks into something handsome, but they refused to cooperate. He was going to meet the person he was meant for and he looked half-dishevelled. He bit back a groan.

As the elevator dinged open, Jean felt his stomach knot. He walked through the doors, and into the singularly crowded lobby. 

An unusual amount of people were milling around. He recognised a large group of ice dancers who had just returned to the hotel, along with their respective coaches and choreographers. Jean recalled half-mindedly how his fellow competitors had planned a mild outing. Nothing too rowdy since they all had the exhibition skate tomorrow. He had even been reluctantly invited, but after the way the free skate had unfolded, he had been in no mood to celebrate.  

He kept standing there while scanned his surroundings, looking for soulmate. But with all the people in the lobby Jean might as well had been looking for a needle in a haystack. A needle he had no idea what it looked like. Shaking his head, he rummaged through his pocket and patted himself on the back for having had the foresight to bring a pen along. 

He scribbled a quick.

_ I’m here. You? _

And lifted his eyes to scan the crown once again. Suddenly his skin tingled with the telltale warmth. His heart skipped a beat.  

Jean checked his hand.

_ On your left _

Holding his breath, Jean pivoted on the spot. And his eyes met a pair of very green and very angry ones. Underneath them was a bruised cheek and a scowl he was very familiar with. In the span of a heartbeat Jean’s gaze took in the palm the blond Russian had lifted. And the same words that looped in smudged ink on his own hand stared back at him.

He gaped.

Then he blinked twice.

But Yuri Plisetsky was still there, unimpressed scowl and everything. Yuri Plisetsky, his  _ soulmate.  _ Faintly, Jean was aware he was staring, stupidly so, but as he looked at the younger skater who stood in front of him, the silver medalist who should have won the GPF, the same one who had made it a habit to insult Jean in the sparse occasions he was not insulting him, he could not help feeling like his brain had short-circuited.

He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out, and he snapped it shut a moment later. The blond’s eyes grew more irritated by the second, and he watched in slow motion as his scowl deepened into something familiar. 

An insult was coming his way.

Jean braced himself for it. But instead of Yuri’s colourful appraisal of Jean’s shortcoming, the blond’s eyes suddenly widened and he whipped his head towards the centre of the lobby. Jean followed his gaze.

Behind the ice dancers who had finally managed to start dragging themselves towards the elevators, Nikiforov’s telltale grey hair swayed as the former skater dragged a very tipsy looking Yuuri Katsuki in the same direction. The two must had noticed them, because a slurred

“Yuriiiiooo!” escaped the silver-haired coach. 

The blond’s shoulders stiffened, and before Jean managed to make sense of the tableau, he was being dragged by the elbow. He stumbled into an elevator as Yuri slammed the button to close the doors. The ice dancers who had just called the elevator protested, but a moment later the door were dinging closed, and the elevator jerked to motion. 

“What was that?” Jean asked half breathless from the suddenness of it all. His elbow was still tightly gripped by the blond’s hand.

“Nothing.” Plisetsky spat back, dropping Jean’s elbow. He crossed his arms in front of his chest “I’m not in the mood to deal with the drunken idiots. They’re gross enough when they’re sober.”

“Fair enough.” Jean replied. He put his hands in his pockets, and wondered if he should add something. The silence was growing awkward as the elevator dragged them up. But Yuri was glaring at the carpeted floor, and Jean had no idea what to say. 

He was still taken aback by the twist of events. Yuri Plisetsky being his soulmate was not a notion he had ever entertained. But it did explain why he had stopped replying after he had realised it was Jean on the other side of the connection. 

He dropped his gaze, looking at the tips of his trainers and shaking his head lightly. This was not the time and place for mulling over things. Jean would have plenty of time to think about all the things he had told Yuri and had been told in return. But now was not the time for it. Not when the silence coiled around them like a thick shroud, and the only sound was the sharp tapping of Yuri’s foot on the carpeted floor

He lifted his head, looking at the taut line of the Russian’s shoulder, while his heart beat a hundred miles an hour. Jean had never been one to give up before he tried. Exhaling through his nose he pulled his lips into a tentative smile, and spoke.

“So, how pissed off were you when you figured it out?” he asked Yuri, his voice flexing with a teasing tone. The Russian’s impossibly green eyes connected with his, and his scowl deepened.

“It set a new record.” he spat, cocking an eyebrow. His lips were curled into a grimace, but Jean swore there was a faint edge of mirth in it. Or maybe it was just his imagination. Because a moment later Yuri was back to glaring at the elevator door, his whole posture stiff and angry.  

Jean wanted to keep the conversation going, but the doors chose that moment to ding open and Yuri strode out of the elevator. 

“Are you coming or what?” he barked at Jean, striding forward. 

And Jean could do nothing but follow him. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lesson in geography... ;)

 

Yuri was restless. As the elevator brought them to his floor, he could feel it rippling under his skin, replacing the anger which had burnt inside chest since the free skate. Since he had fucked up. In the scarce minutes which had passed from the moment he had impulsively written on his skin to the awkward meeting in the lobby, something had switched inside him, and the desperate rage had realigned into an entirely different mixture of emotions. Leaving Yuri confused as fuck. The way his heart had pounded when he had pulled the Canadian idiot inside the elevator, the knot in his stomach as he fumbled with the keycard in front of his door. It was all too fucking confusing. And it irritated the fuck out of him.

Hissing a few curses Yuri slid the card until the green light flickered to life, and the door unlocked. As he closed the door shut behind them Yuri shifted his feet, tucking his hands in his pockets. Leroy was standing like the moron he was in the middle of the room, looking at him with a hint of expectation in his eyes. Stupid cornflower blue eyes. He fucking hated how bright they were. And how fucking silent everything had suddenly gotten now that they were in Yuri’s hotel room.

The duvet was slightly rumpled from Yuri sitting on it and his costume was lying like dead skin on the floor. He could almost smell the anger he had exuded in the past hours. The more he looked at the pastel walls, the clearer the impression became. 

The walls were suddenly too close and the silence was starting to choke him. He itched to say something. He fucking needed to shatter this silence, to mince it until there was no trace of it. Until he could finally breathe. But no words were coming forth. 

His mind was filled with static. And all he could do was look at the shadows Leroy and him painted on the carpet. 

This was not what he had envisioned when he had told the idiot to meet him. Not that he had put much thought on it. It had been an impulsive move on his part. But now that the secret was out and Leroy was standing there in Yuri’s hotel room, bland yellow light reflecting off his dark locks and shock still visible in the careful expression his face was set in, Yuri had no fucking idea what to do. What to say. 

This whole situation had been way beyond his comfort zone from the very beginning, back when he had been a small child and his mother explained everything. Yuri did not believe in fucking soulmates, it was utter bullshit. But the connection he had with the other person, with the moron who was looking at him expectantly, was something undeniable. As undeniable as the fact that he had been spilling his heart’s contents to none other than Jean-Jacques fucking Leroy, dickhead supreme.

Only he had been nothing but infuriatingly decent lately. 

“Why the fuck are you not being a dick?” Yuri voiced the question, surprising himself with the lack of aggression in his voice.

“What?” the moron gaped, and Yuri’s lip curled in distaste. 

“Are you fucking deaf? I asked why aren’t you acting like the patented dick you usually are. You’re fucking  _ nice! _ ” Yuri spat back with too little heat. What the fuck was wrong with him? This was JJ for fuck’s sake, not Lilia. He had no reason to be polite. 

“I’m always nice.” Leroy replied in genuine fucking confusion of all things, and Yuri snorted, rolling his eyes.

“Sure you are, and I’m the fucking poster boy for politeness.” he rebutted with a cocked eyebrow “Cut the crap, idiot. Why are you being all nice and shit all of a sudden?”

“That’s who I am.” Leroy retorted with a shake of his head “You know, I don’t spend all the time teasing people.” 

“No, you just insult them.” Yuri rebutted, leaning against the door and crossing his ankles.

“That’s rich coming from you.” Leroy said, eyes twinkling in amusement. Then his lips pulled into a teasing grin “Sorry to be a disappointment.” he said with a wink.

“Whatever.” Yuri growled back, starting to feel freaked out by the ease with which the conversation was flowing. And the odd restlessness which had pooled inside him started to bubble under his skin once again. 

Leroy was looking at him with an annoyingly laid back smile, that he had  _ no fucking reason _ to wear. Wasn’t he freaked out by this whole situation? Yuri had known for a fucking year the idiot was his  _ soulmate  _ or whatever shit he should call the person he was connected to, and the notion still made his skin prickle with a mixture of unease that held too much panic and too little contempt for Yuri to be comfortable with it.

Uncrossing his ankles he trudged across the room and threw himself into a chair, angrily pushing back his hair from his face. The fucking douchebag was just looking at him with a pensive expression, looking more and more at ease with the whole situation than he had any right to be. It irked Yuri to no end. He was probably all too happy to have found his soulmate and shit to even care that it was Yuri and not the irritating chick he had been engaged to. The bitch who had insulted Yuri’s fans. He was stuck with the Russian Punk slash Fairy and whatever other shit people dubbed him.

Not that Yuri wanted anything to do with Leroy. The thought alone sent a shiver of ice down his spine. He needed to make that clear before the moron started getting  _ ideas _ or some shit. Because there was no fucking way in hell Yuri was going to go out with Leroy. The notion itself was incredibly gross, and Yuri’s stomach constricted, while his heart pumped adrenaline through his body.

Shaking his head he looked at Leroy who had apparently been staring at him this whole time. Oh, he definitely needed to get it through his thick Canadian skull. 

“I don’t believe in all this shit about soulmates.” he said forcefully, leaning his sweaty palms on his knees, and startling the idiot who opened his mouth to reply something only to snap it shut a moment later.

Leroy lowered himself until he was sitting on the edge of Yuri’s bed, at eye level with him. Yuri watched him run a hand through his black locks, leaving them mussed in the wake. 

“Okay.” he said, nodding. 

Yuri gaped, blinking twice. 

“Huh?”

“What do you want me to say, Yuri?” Leroy said. When the fuck had he started calling him Yuri?  “I’m not gonna lie. I’m disappointed, but…”

“Not good enough for the likes of you  _ Leroy? _ ” Yuri suddenly bristled. He may not have the remotest interest in the Canadian moron, but he was not going to be called a fucking disappointment. Not by  _ him,  _ that was for sure. 

Why it mattered what fucking JJ thought of him, Yuri didn’t know. But something brewed searingly in his chest at the thought that he was found lacking. 

“That’s not what I said.” Leroy rebutted with a hint of irritation “If you’d actually let me finish…”

“Go ahead.” Yuri retorted with vitriol “Sorry, I’m not up to your standards.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Leroy swore, and Yuri had to stop himself from gaping at him. “Look, what I was trying to say before you started jumping to conclusions, was that I know we haven’t really started on the right foot, okay. I mean that’s not exactly relationship building material there, is it?” his tan cheeks reddened slightly at the last part and Yuri found himself swallowing.

Yuri’s stupid treacherous heart lurched at the thought, and he curled his lips into a scowl. 

Leroy cleared his throat.

“So, really it’s okay.” he told Yuri “And I don’t think you’re not good enough or anything.” then he shook his head, barking a self-deprecating laugh “I’m pretty sure I was waxing poetical on your account just an hour ago, wasn’t I?.”

“I don’t want your medal.” Yuri retorted, remembering the earlier conversation. Then he added in small voice “You deserved it.”

“That’s not what you wrote earlier.” Leroy retorted, knitting his dark eyebrows.

“I was pissed off.” he rebutted, shifting awkwardly in the chair, then flashing Leroy his most defiant look he added “Besides, I’m gonna kick your ass at Worlds.”

“You mean you’ll  _ try  _ to kick my ass?” Leroy teased him, and Yuri glared at him, but he could feel his lips quirk slightly in mirth.

The motion moved one of the muscles on his bruised cheek, and Yuri found himself wincing.

“Does it hurt?” the idiot suddenly asked “Your face, I mean that bruise looks painful.”

“I’ve had worse.” Yuri replied, his voice becoming clipped.

“Of course you did.” Leroy said with a laugh “We all did. I hit my head so bad on the ice once, I got a concussion. I even threw up and everything.”

“Gross. Also it explains many things.” Yuri deadpanned, and Leroy’s already stupidly cheerful face brightened by several hundred watts as he genuinely laughed.

The sound grated on Yuri’s nerves, but for all that he tried to hate it, he didn’t. It reverberated inside his chest, and he fought the smile pulling at the corner of his lips. 

He failed.

And worse yet, the moron noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So at this point I truly have no clue how long this is going to be. I have a very rough outline, but with Yuri being so deeply in denial it could be anything from 4 to 10 chapters.  
> Let me know what you think (on this, the chapter, the fic, honestly you can ramble about the weather, anything goes. I thrive on comments, even if they're just keyboard smash XD). <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realise it has been so long since I last updated! :O

 

Jean’s soulmate was Yuri Plisetsky. He repeated the sentence inside his head, standing in front of his mirror, still incredulous. Because Jean had spent so long convinced he had no soulmate. And then that sudden message had appeared on his skin, leading to endless conversations which had filled Jean with something akin to completeness. They had bantered and joked, and everything had been right. Only to be abruptly interrupted those long months of radio silence. When Jean had feared the worst, until he had once again been thrown off balance by his soulmate. By Yuri. 

Yuri who had been his soulmate all along.

Jean exhaled, rubbing a hand down his face, before shaking his head. His heart was still beating that faster pace it had taken after their encounter in the lobby, and it wasn’t slowing down. He pulled his pyjama bottoms on and looked at the bare skin of his forearms. 

Yuri must have taken a shower too, he mused idly. 

He was still feeling that strange sense of anticipation he had on the moment of takeoff, when he didn’t know if he was going to nail the quad or not. When everything still hung precariously in the realm of possibility, and time stood still.

His head shook on its own, almost a reflex motion at the jumble of impressions that were frozen in the moment and jutted out of the surface of his thoughts. Because his mind may rationally find the whole situation reasonable, fitting even. After all, from the very first moment Jean had met Yuri he had been impossible to ignore. And if it had been for the wrong reasons it didn’t matter, because what counted was that they had never felt indifferent towards each other. But these thoughts, these musings that tried to give a sense to this uncanny twist of events, might as well have belonged to someone else. Jean could not feel them. 

In fact he could not feel anything save from the tiredness of a day he had spent competing, and having earth-shattering revelations thrown at his face. He could not  _ feel _ . So maybe it was still shock, maybe his brain was not ready to process it all. 

Maybe he should go to bed and rest. 

Because the exhibition gala was still going to be held tomorrow, and while it was nowhere near as exhausting as competing, it was still a routine that needed to be skated. 

He slumped down on the bed, pulling the covers over his body and switching the light off. 

In the darkness of his closed lids flashes of ink spiralled, moving in choctaws and turning into the slender figure of a figure skater. A glimpse of angel blond hair, and then the skittishness of a wounded animal as he told Jean he did not believe in soulmates, and Jean agreed. Because what could he do but agree, when it was the first civil conversation they had ever had.

But it wasn’t, was it? The twirls of spidery ink erupted from his memory. They had talked for months, opening their chests and baring the most vulnerable parts of themselves. Jean had been given more than a glimpse beyond the the armour. And maybe Yuri had not known it had been Jean, not in the beginning, but he still felt like he had been given something precious.

Something that made his heart thrum loudly in the silence of the night. 

And yes, maybe he was confused, and shocked, but there was a silver thread of something which weaved through his thoughts, pulling him into slumber with a single thought on his mind.

He was happy it was Yuri.

The thought still lingered on the forefront of his mind the next morning as he got out of bed, and groggily stepped under a spray of slightly cool water. The confusion of the night before had dulled to a sheen of something which clung to his thoughts, and he worked on autopilot, readying himself for the upcoming exhibition gala. 

An elevator ride later, Jean met his parents in the lobby. As he walked in their direction Jean wondered for a suspended moment if he should tell them now. About Yuri. About finally finding his soulmate. 

But even as his mouth opened, nothing but a greeting escaped his lips. 

Maybe it was the perfect clarity with which he could picture his mother’s pinched face when he’d tell them Yuri Plisetsky shared a bond with him. Maybe it was that in spite of the peace he had found the night before, a part of Jean still struggled in coming to terms with the fact that the teen who had challenged him, insulted him, and all but professed to hate him was the one meant for him. 

That they were meant for  _ each other _ .

Maybe it was none of those reasons, and maybe it was both, but Jean just trudged forward, easily slipping into routine. And forgetting for a couple of hours the fact his life had been wrenched off its axis the night before, and now he was looking for an anchor.

He floated like that for the rest of the morning until they were scheduled official practice, and Jean eased himself on the ice. Dozens of multicoloured spotlights illuminated it, dancing above the skaters who glided in laps, warming up. Jean joined them readily. But his eyes barely registered any of them. He was looking for a telltale mane of angel blond hair. 

His eyes kept scanning the rink until he spotted it. There, on the rink entrance, just stepping on the ice was Yuri. His soulmate. Jean felt something clench in his chest. His lungs, he realised a moment later when he exhaled a short breath.

Jean didn’t know why he was reacting to the blond like this. It was hardly the first time he had seen him. And yet it  _ was _ . Because he was his soulmate, and Jean’s eyes allowed themselves to truly  _ look  _ at him. To see the grace of his movements as more than just a competitor’s asset. To take in the way his golden hair shone under the pink and orange spotlights. How it seemed almost silver under the blue ones. How his sinewy legs bended to accompany the movements. 

It was like seeing him for the first time. And he probably had been staring, because Yuri’s eyes caught his, and a blond eyebrow twitched, even as Yuri nodded in his direction. 

And Jean could not help the stupid grin that appeared on his face. He waved in his direction, probably too cheerfully judging by the annoyed look he was being given, but Jean did not care. Yuri was his soulmate.

And maybe the younger skater didn’t believe in their bond, but it was there. Jean could feel it. And the more he thought about the clearer ot became. How everything in their interactions had been slightly removed from normality. How they had never been able to ignore each other. 

Jean warmed up, trying to focus on his movements, but more than once he caught himself following the blond with his gaze. And after the initial sneers, Yuri merely rolled his eyes whenever they gazes crossed. It made amusement bubble in the pit of Jean’s stomach and the end of practice found him grinning as he grabebd a bottle of water and downed it in one go. He had just handed the empty plastic to his mother when Yuri passed them by, giving him another sharp nod.

He was in the locker room when his skin tingled, and he scrambled to push his sleeve up.

_ You better not stare at me when you skate, idiot. You’ll break that stupid nose. _

A bout of laughter escaped his lips and he wrenched his bag open, looking for a pen. 

_ Aw, you worry!  _ he teased and then because he remembered the almost fragile equilibrium they had reached before when Yuri rolled his eyes at Jean’s antics, he added  _ So cute.  _

The response was almost immediate.

_ I’m not CUTE! I will run you through with my skates. _

Jean laughed harder, shaking his head.

_ Apologies, I must have misspelled fearsome,  _ he replied  _ Is that better? _

Yuri’s answer was a simple

_ Yes. _

And Jean just shook his head, changing out of his sweaty workout clothes, and into the costume. 

Time flew, and soon, too soon the exhibition gala was starting. Amid the excitement of the crowd and the odd mixture of various music genres that blared through the loudspeakers Jean got ready to go on the ice. 

It was Yuri’s turn, and Jean leaned on the barrier, much like he had done the day before during the free skate. It seemed like a lifetime ago when Jean had been watching Yuri weave music onto the ice. But it had been barely twenty-four hours. It felt uncanny, and the still reeling part of his mind coiled unpleasantly. 

But Jean had always run with the flow. And when the music started and Yuri began skating, any lingering thought he might have harboured vanished in a blast of electric blue spotlight. And the absolutely breathtaking view of Yuri’s body bending low on the ice, before rising up, arms extended and bare sinews chiselled in the sharp light. Jean had seen that exhibition skate before, but it might as well have been an entirely new routine.

Because only now was Jean truly seeing Yuri in all his glory.

And his heart stuttered.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find myself at a crossroads, from this point on should I go fluffy or should I go steamy (or both)?


	14. Chapter 14

Yuri was back in Saint Petersburg, getting ready for Nationals. Every morning he woke to the darkness of the winter sky and soldiered through hours upon hours of gruelling training. The anger he had felt at his own failure at the GPF simmered inside him. And he pushed himself past his breaking point, until he was nothing but aching sinews stretched between throbbing joints. He practiced until his legs threatened to collapse and black dots appeared on the edge of his vision. Yuri destroyed himself each day, only to stitch his body back together, and get ready for another one. It made his coaches frown at him, yelling to not overwork himself, but Yuri didn’t give a single fuck. He was at the rink every morning, hours before Yakov arrived, and his skates were the ones to break the pristine surface of the ice. 

Because he may had fucking failed, but he was  _ not _ going to fail again. He would prove it, to himself, to the world, to all of his competitors that he was fucking able to skate better than he had. His jaw hurt some days from how hard he gnashed his teeth, but he could not dispel this anger. And every time he did a triple Axel he let it course through his muscles along with the shame he had bottled up. It pushed him to jump higher, faster, and cover a greater distance than he ever did before.

Yuri was not going to fail again. Never. 

He was a monster. He had made history as a fucking child prodigy, and he could, he  _ would  _ prove it. He was going to show them he  _ should _ have won the GPF, that Leroy’s medal  _ should _ have been his own. Even JJ knew that. In fact the idiot had insisted on it throughout the whole banquet, hellbent on convincing Yuri to take his medal.

He knew it was not given in pity, Leroy had stressed out as much too many times to count. But for all that Yuri was more than aware he could skate better than Leroy, he  _ had  _ fucked up the free skate. So it was his own fault if he had not managed to score more than the idiot. But no matter how many times Yuri had told him so it had been an exercise in futility. Because while JJ had proven to be generally more tolerable than Yuri had pegged him for that first season they had competed against each other, the moron  _ was  _ terribly stubborn. 

The baffling thing was that Yuri should be irritated by it. But he wasn’t. He fucking wasn’t, and that was one of the many confusing aspects of Yuri’s current life.

Ever since that night after the free skate when Yuri had revealed himself to the idiot, things had been odd. Leroy was getting less and less annoying by the day. Almost as if he was  _ happy  _ Yuri was his soulmate. Which just made no sense. In all honesty, he couldn’t fucking imagine a reason why anyone would be happy to be his soulmate, not that he believed in that bullshit or anything. He was aggressive, crass and had a penchant for irritating even the most patient of people. He may strive for greatness, but Yuri wasn’t an idiot. He knew full well his own shortcomings. 

So, just like in those first months of friendship with Beka, Yuri was stuck with a perpetual frown which only grew deeper whenever JJ wrote to him, telling him about his day, his training, asking Yuri how had his own gone. And when the Nationals finally rolled around and Yuri flew to Vladivostok, the moron actually cheered on him, telling him to kick his competitors’ collective asses.

Yuri looked at those hurriedly scratched words, almost feeling the earnest excitement the moron was feeling at the thought of Yuri fucking succeeding. Not that he didn’t. Getting gold was almost too easy after the fortnight of hellish practice he had forced himself into. He won with a margin that made the other two medalists feel cowed. 

It made Yuri feel a smug satisfaction as he stood on the podium, proudly wearing his medal and knowing he had not a single worthy opponent in the whole of Russia. But as heady as it had been, the feeling couldn’t compare to the sudden warmth which spread inside his chest when JJ’s messy scrawl appeared across the length of his forearm, all but shouting his congratulations, and telling him victory at the Europeans was practically a given if Yuri skated like this. He could feel his heart hammer against the inside of his ribcage and his stomach lurch. And it felt  _ good. _

He tried not to linger too much on his own reaction, because it only added to the ever rising tide of confusion pooling inside him. Besides JJ was right, he had Europeans in less than a month. In fact just two days after the Canadian Nationals. Which Yuri was determined to watch. 

There was no way he was going to let the idiot outdo him. If he had watched and cheered on Yuri then he was going to do the same, even if he had to stay awake the whole fucking night because the time difference was a motherfucker. Besides he had to make sure JJ had no surprises up his sleeve. They were going to compete against each other at Worlds, and Yuri was  _ not  _ going to have JJ snatch away his gold from him again.

He did end up losing precious hours of sleep in order to watch the idiot breeze through his Nationals, skating way better than any of his rivals. His eyes were dry as parchment and he wanted nothing but to roll under the covers of his bed, but he still watched the moron standing atop the podium, grinning and posing with his stupid trademark pose. And instead of being pissed off, Yuri found himself shaking his head and rolling his tired eyes before he closed his laptop and dragged himself to bed. 

He should have probably pondered it deeper, these odd ways his breaths caught or his heart thrummed when Leroy’s words appeared out of the blue on his skin. But he was in the middle of Europeans and Crispino placed first after the short program which pissed Yuri off. When the free skate rolled around he was a tight bundle of anger and grit, and he blazed through the routine, backloading two quads to make sure the creepy Italian could not stand a fucking chance. 

Yuri took gold with a three point margin. And Leroy wrote an essay worth of arely readable gibberish that basically translated to congratulations, half of it written in French. And if Yuri had spent the night grinning with his medal around his neck and a pen in his hand it didn’t really mean anything. 

Saint Petersburg was still covered in a thick shroud of snow when he returned and he started training in earnest for the World Championship. He had less than two months, but with two golds under his belt he was going in for the kill. So he kept training with the same intensity he had done for the past month and a half. He spent the near entirety of the days at the rink going home only  to sleep and shower. It was a gruelling rhythm, but somehow the occasional waves of warmth on his skin made it easier to bear. 

The irony of it did not escape him. There were moments in which Yuri felt bouts of dry laughter get stuck in his throat because JJ fucking Leroy had become the highlight of his days, and if that wasn’t a sign the world was upside down, Yuri didn’t know what was. But he could not deny he liked talking to the moron. It felt almost as if they had gotten back to those first months when none of them had known each other’s identity, and Yuri had enjoyed their easy banter, and the openness the other person inspired in him. 

But there was a nagging thought on the fringes of his mind, that there was more to it. 

He had been skyping with Beka when it occurred to him. His best friend was calmly talking about the next tracks he was going to mix, after the Four Continents were through and he’d have a bit of free time, when Yuri thought how their friendship in a way resembled the connection he had with the Canadian idiot. But even as he pinpointed the similarities, there was a visceral feeling of wrongness to it. Because for all that they talked with absolute ease these days, and Yuri was tentatively starting to trust the moron, it was  _ not  _ like talking to Beka.

Yuri must have been silent for too long because Otabek stopped speaking and frowned at the camera.

“Yura?” he said “You okay?” 

His first instinct was to scoff and tell Beka that of course he was fucking okay. But this was  _ Otabek, _ he could see through his shit better than anyone, including his Grandfather. 

So he sighed, shaking his head.

“I’m… I don’t fucking know.” he said, angrily pushing his hair behind his ear “I was just thinking, Leroy is not my  _ friend _ .”

Beka hummed, but said nothing.

“But I like talking to him.” Yuri continued with a disgusted curl of his lips “And I’m fucking looking forward to Worlds.” he spat “So what the fuck is this?”

“He’s your soulmate, Yura.” Otabek replied calmly.

“I already told you I don’t fucking  _ believe  _ in soulmates.” Yuri bit back “And even if I were, you’re telling I’m what,  _ in love  _ with the fucking idiot?”

Beka shrugged. And it pissed Yuri off. 

Because he was not in love with Leroy, for fuck’s sake. The notion itself was so far in the fucking realm of absurd, it was laughable. Yuri had no romantic feelings whatsoever, let alone for fucking  _ JJ _ of all people. Maybe thinking of him as a friend made his stomach squirm and his chest lurch oddly, but he was surely not in love with him. Or having a crush for that part.

Leroy was the most obnoxious, narcissistic asshole he had ever met. He had his own fucking initials tattooed.  _ Twice _ . And one of them was a fucking tramp stamp. Who the fuck did that? Scratch that, who the fuck had a photoshoot in nothing but an undershirt and a pair of tight red boxers, flaunting the aforementioned tramp stamp for the world to see? And the half-lidded expression he had in that particular photo was downright gross. 

And it pissed Yuri off incredibly.

He glared at the webcam, trying to convey all of this to his friend without having to actually say it, but Otabek was giving him a serene expression that pissed Yuri further off. What the fuck was wrong with him? His best friend might be a fucking firm believer in soulmates and shit, having been communicating with his one since he had been a small boy, and enjoying the fucking  _ mystery  _ of not knowing who they were. But if he was convinced the other person was his only true love or some shit it did not mean Yuri had to feel the same way about JJ.

Because even if he did have feelings, which he didn’t, it would not mean shit. His parents were soulmates and look at how fucking splendid that one went. No, soulmates were just bullshit, and while he liked talking to JJ, and was in fact looking forward to the World Championship, it had absolutely nothing to do with  _ love. _

Or attraction.

Or any of that shit.

He  _ did not _ have a crush on Leroy.


	15. Chapter 15

Jean was distracted. The second half of the skating season had rolled around, and he was supposed to do his best, to break at least one personal best, all the while readying himself for Worlds. Because Jean may had won the GPF, but it had not been his superior skating skill which had placed him in the middle of the podium. It had been Yuri’s flubbed jump that had allowed him to stay in first place and go home with an undeserved gold medal. 

Incidentally it was Yuri who was at the root of Jean’s distraction. His soulmate occupied most of his thoughts. Between the disbelief slowly fading into elation and a strange excitement that bordered on anticipation, it was impossible for Jean to focus entirely on the competitions afoot. He was more invested in watching the blond kick ass at the Russian Nationals than he was thinking about his own upcoming ones. Not allowing himself to be stopped by time zones, Jean had cheered at the blurry livestream, watching Yuri perform a perfect set of routines, leaving the competition in the dust. It had been a strain not to scratch words of congratulation on his forearm the moment the results had appeared on screen. Only after Yuri had descended the podium with yet another gold medal around his neck had Jean picked a pen, and proceeded to write the longest congratulations ever. 

The weeks which had followed had been filled with more conversation, bantering, and throwing jabs, but most of all keeping tabs on the their skating progress. They would not see each other until Worlds, and there were more competitions to be aced before they met on the same ice. 

Before he realised it, January was ending and Jean was flying to Vancouver to compete at Nationals. Once again his mind was far away from his own competition, instead spending most of his time wondering how Yuri was going to perform at the upcoming Europeans. Distracted as he had been, Jean had still taken gold with barely any effort. It had felt good, but the curt congratulations which had appeared on his arm had felt more precious than any of the personal records he had set in that competition. 

He had just made it back to Montreal when the Europeans began, and Jean cheered for Yuri, all but jumping off his bed when he managed to outscore a very dangerously strong Michele Crispino. Long conversations filled the following days, and before he knew it Jean was standing on the top of the podium at the Four Continents, only aware in passing of the fact he may had crushed a world record with his short program. It all breezed past him, his days marked by the messages he exchanged with Yuri, and the easy banter they had slipped back into. Even his parents had noticed something was amiss, and more than once they had tried to prod, cautiously asking if something was wrong.

But nothing was wrong. 

In fact, things had never been better before. There was a lightness in his chest that made him feel like he was seconds from floating up into the late winter air. He was happy, and counting the days until the World Championship began. Jean was soaring through the sky, feeling like a bird using their wings for the first time. More often than not he was grinning stupidly. So much in fact that his siblings started teasing him, all the while poking and prodding to find out why was Jean so bubbly, so cheerful.

He should have known it was not meant to last.

One evening he got a text from Otabek Altin of all people. Jean stared at the screen of his phone, eyebrows having already climbed high beneath his fringe. He was not sure what was more shocking, the Kazakh having Jean’s number or choosing to  _ use  _ it. Shaking his head, he opened the text, which curtly read

_ Yura’s birthday is on March the 1st _

Before he even processed the information, Jean was looking at the date on his calendar. He had no idea  _ why  _ Altin had chosen to bestow that information upon him, only but he was more than grateful he had. Because in less two days, hell barely a day in Yuri’s timezone, the blond would be turning eighteen. 

The first thought was what gift could he pick on such a short notice. 

But even as he opened amazon, he began wondering if Yuri would want a gift from  _ him.  _ Sure, they were soulmates, and in a way they had become friends, hadn’t they?

Jean frowned.  _ Friends.  _ It was an insidious thing, that word. It flickered at first, just a spark before it began crawling through the millions of synapses in his brain, curling through his thoughts, his emotions. In all its wrongness. No, it did not sit well with Jean. It did not. There was something jagged about the way it slotted into the Yuri-shaped space the blond had carved inside Jean’s mind. 

In hindsight that was the moment when everything suddenly cracked. 

Somewhere in the back of Jean’s mind there had always been a whispering voice which would weave tales of soulmates and love, of things Jean wanted, things he craved for. A voice that did not care that Yuri did not believe in soulmates. It did not factor in the fact that none of it mattered. That it couldn’t matter. 

They were not friends, but they were neither something more. 

The crack spidered out in a web of of small fractures. For a very still second Jean tried to imagine a future where nothing changed, where he spent the rest of his days nursing this frail connection, fearing to overstep. Dreading the silence he had known too well. And the image seared through his chest, knotting around his windpipe. They were not friends because Jean did not  _ want  _ them to be friends. 

The cracks deepened, stilling for a moment, before everything began crumbling down.

It was quite simple, when he thought about it. Terrifyingly so. And Jean should have probably realised it awhile ago. But he had been dazed by the elation of his discovery, blinded by the irrational surge of hope. And somewhere along the way, he had fallen in love.

It should have made him happy. 

It was the most natural thing in the world to be in love with your soulmate. 

But Jean would be a fool if he thought Yuri was anywhere close to reciprocating those feelings. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about him, tried not to recall the way his angel blond hair had shined under the spotlight, or the fray of emotions that had shimmered in his green eyes when he had told Jean he did not believe in soulmates. He tried not to feel the echoes of the joy he felt whenever his skin tingled as words appeared in a messy scrawl. Above it all he wished he could not recall with perfect clarity every single message Yuri had scribbled on his skin. Because whenever he thought about him he felt hope blossom in his chest, hope which sprung from his belief in soulmates. From faith alone. 

Taking away their connection, there was nothing more than a tentative friendship. It was an insidious thought, and a word he was growing to hate. Friendship.

That day lasted aeons in Jean’s perception, and yet it was done too soon. Yuri’s birthday was looming closer and closer. And in the past twenty-four hours Jean had not written a word to him. The blond had not initiated contact either, but after all it was Jean who always insisted.

He didn’t write a single word because he didn’t know what to write. His whole perception of reality had been tilted once again, and he didn’t know what to think. And just the thought of writing to Yuri, of saying the wrong thing, of severing their connection, frail as it was, made his stomach constrict.

It could not have happened at a worse moment. 

And yet if it hadn’t been for Altin’s message Jean may had lived in denial for far longer than he had had. It would have made everything even worse. 

He needed to sort his feelings. He needed to know if the flutter of emotion in his chest was genuine, or if he was just deluding himself, attaching to the idea of soulmates, and disregarding reality. 

But before he did that he needed to wish Yuri a happy birthday. Confusion was no excuse for bad manners. Jean took his pen, and the moment midnight stroke in Yuri’s timezone, he wrote a simple  _ Happy Birthday  _ on his left forearm. 

He got no reply, but then again Yuri must have been asleep. It didn’t matter. It had been the polite thing to do, and a small part of him almost wished the blond would not answer. 

He was in bed, on the verge of falling asleep when his skin tingled for the first time in days. He fumbled with the light switch, and then lifted the hem of his pyjama top. On his stomach was a terse

_ How the fuck did you know?  _

And in spite of the needles piercing his breaths and the now familiar clenching of his stomach, Jean chuckled. The pen was on the bedside table, and he sighed before writing

_ I have my ways. _

He had almost told him it had been Otabek’s doing, but bantering with Yuri was too familiar, too easy to fall back into. 

They could have been the best of friends if Jean’s heart had not betrayed him. But then again, he had always been poised to fall. He had grown with the dream of finding his soulmate and falling in love with them. It was no surprise he had done so. After all he had started falling for Yuri the moment he had revealed himself as Jean’s soulmate.

Jean stilled in his bed, heaving a choked breath as his eyes widened. It had been then, hadn’t it? He had barely considered Yuri before that moment. Certainly he had never looked at him in that light before. He sighed, looking at his hand, pen still clutched in his palm. He had started developing feelings for Yuri the very next day after he had revealed himself. It was no coincidence. And it answered his dilemma in the most defeating way.

He was not in love with Yuri. 

He was in love with an idea.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be fluffy. :/


	16. Chapter 16

Yuri was annoyed. In truth, if he were honest with himself, he’d say he was on the verge of being royally pissed off and a hairbreadth away from kickflipping the moron, never mind he was currently wearing skates. What the  _ fuck  _ was wrong with Leroy? They were in Milan, doing unofficial practices five days before the World Championship started, and the idiot was skating worse than Yuri had ever seen him before. And that included the complete fuck up JJ’s short program in Barcelona had been. At least back then he had had nerves as a weak excuse, but this, what the fuck was this? 

Scowling at the idiot, Yuri kept doing laps, going through the connecting elements and waiting for the centre of the ice to free so he could give it a go at his jumps and spins. But the Canadian did not look like he was about to finish any time soon. With each flubbed jump JJ tried again and again, failing more miserably, and increasing Yuri’s irritation. He wanted him to skate at his best. Otherwise crushing him would be no satisfaction at all. 

He almost winced when JJ fell out of a miserable under-rotated quad Salchow, rolled on the ice only to lift himself to his knees, heaving breaths. Yuri felt the overwhelming urge to slap some sense into the moron, but before he could get anywhere close, the idiot’s parents were calling him off the ice, and JJ rose, skating towards the exit with his shoulders slumped and his head hanging dejectedly.

The absolute  _ moron _ . What the fucking hell was wrong with him?

In fact, what the fuck had been wrong with him for the past weeks? He had used to chat about virtually anything, filling Yuri’s arms, thighs and stomach with shittons of useless information about his day, about his skating, about his siblings’ shenanigans. And Yuri would have lied if he claimed he didn’t like it. There was something natural about it, an ease that lightened the days of heavy training he kept doing, and which never failed to elicit that tender rush of warmth somewhere between his lungs. 

That was, until the moron had stopped doing that.

Yuri had wondered if it was his fault somehow, but replaying most of their recent interactions showed nothing out of the ordinary. He had not been more rude, or insulting than he usually was, so it must be something on Leroy’s end. 

The moron was not outright ignoring him, but it was an obvious change in pace. Yuri could almost feel the reluctance in the short sentences, and it had been pissing him off for weeks now.  

And now this.

What the fuck was wrong with Leroy? 

Getting the right amount of speed to leap into a triple Axel Yuri decided he was going to find out. He was not going to let the moron shut him out. Not without a good reason. He was fucking tired of people just dropping out of his life. And JJ may be annoying as fuck, and cocky, and a moron most of the time, but he had a spot in Yuri’s life, and he was not going to let him go so easily. 

No fucking way.

Confronting him, however, proved easier said than done. It was nearly impossible to catch the dickhead. He had completely ignored the half a dozen  _ Where the fuck are you?  _ Yuri had scribbled on his forearm over the course of the afternoon. And when evening rolled around, and the other competitors decided a dinner together was a good idea, JJ was nowhere to be seen. 

So Yuri resigned himself to cornering the moron the next day at the rink, and spent the rest of the evening bitching to Beka about it while they ate dinner  _ without  _ the rest of the competitors. He had no intention of dealing with Victor and Katsudon, let alone the rest of their overly cheerful friends, thank you very much.

After a record breaking long rant, Beka just hummed but said nothing, brooding expression growing more intense as he lost himself deep in thought. 

“You should definitely talk to him.” he said at last, and Yuri rolled his eyes with an exasperated expression.

“No shit! What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do?” he snarled back.

“Maybe less aggressively, Yura.” Beka said calmly, lips pulling in the faintest of smirks, but Yuri caught it and his expression darkened. 

“Fine. Whatever.” he bit back, stabbing the pasta on his plate with his fork. 

Beka had a point, even Yuri could see he was being far too pissed off to have a decent conversation, but he could not help it. He wanted to know what the fuck was wrong with Leroy. Why was he ignoring him? And above it all, what the fuck was up with his skating? 

He resolved to speak to him in the morning at the rink, vowing to himself that he was going to keep his cool. And when the next day rolled around and Yuri made his way to the rink where they held their practices, he did his best to stay chill, mentally rehearsing the way he was going to confront JJ. Beka had said less aggressively, and Yuri was going to be fucking  _ nice  _ if he had to. 

Or he would have  _ been  _ fucking nice. If the moron had showed up.

Everyone was there, taking the opportunity to rehearse their routines in the wake of the official practices starting the day after. Everyone but Leroy. Yuri had skated, going over his routines over and over again, until he was getting sick of repeating the same fucking motions. But JJ had not shown. 

Yuri scowled all the way to the locker room, angrily peeling off his sweaty practice gear and pulling fresh clothes on. Beka must had seen his thunderous expression because he said nothing, unlacing his skates calmly and eyeing Yuri every now and then with a shade of concern in his eyes. 

He was about to snap at his best friend, but he stopped himself before snarling something. It was not Beka’s fault. In fact the only person to blame for Yuri’s murderous mood was JJ fucking Leroy. 

He had resolved to stay calm when he confronted him, but now all the fucking calm had flown out the window and crashed on the tarmac beneath. Because the moron was  _ clearly  _ avoiding him. And Yuri was not having it. He didn’t give a fuck if he had to knock on every single door of the hotel they were staying, he was going to find JJ and get a fucking answer.

Beka, bless his soul, for the first time in this whole soulmate business chose to be helpful rather than spewing nonsense. Before Yuri went and harassed the fuck of the hotel guests in his quest to find the Canadian idiot, Otabek had his coach give him the number of Leroy’s parents, and in the most fucking polite version of himself he asked for JJ’s whereabout, spewing some nonsense about being worried for his former rinkmate and shit.

The best part was Leroy’s parent ate the fuck out of Beka’s hand, not only telling him where JJ was now, but also thanking him profusely for looking out for their boy, and they were so worried because he’s been acting strangely, they hoped Otabek would be able to do something, thank you so much son.

An hour later Yuri was standing in front of JJ’s hotel room, wet hair drying in the air because Beka had insisted he needed to take a shower before he went to kick Leroy’s ass. Resisting the urge to kick the door down, Yuri scowled raising a fist to the door and knocking twice. He stood there for a couple of seconds, looking at the fake wood of the door and wondering if the moron was going to open the door, when suddenly he heard the click of the lock. 

A moment later the door was opening to reveal a dishevelled looking JJ. The moment he saw Yuri his stupid blue eyes widened in shock. And before the moron had the time to react Yuri was pushing inside his room, to Leroy’s bewilderment.

 


	17. Chapter 17

Jean stared dumbfounded. His eyes were wide as he looked at the blond striding through his door and into his hotel room like he owned it. His lips were curled into an ugly snarl, and behind the curtain of wet hair, Jean could see him seething in anger. He closed the door just as Yuri snarled

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” and Jean did not move even as Yuri stepped too close into Jean’s personal space, a thundercloud of anger hanging around him like static. 

His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, thick with unspoken words, with the chaos of his thoughts. Because before Yuri had barged in like a hurricane, Jean had been tossing and turning in his bed, trying to sleep while his whole body had kept thrumming unpleasantly. After the disastrous practice he had had the day before, it had felt like a vice had been wrapped tight across his chest. And it had made his breaths hard to come, pressing against his rapid beating heart. 

His heart which now pumped so fast it seemed like it wanted to escape from the constraints of his chest and just run away. Away from all the jumble of thoughts and unresolved emotions, from the confusion. 

Away from Yuri.

But his soulmate was not having it. He could see it in the wild look in Yuri’s eyes, in the way his body was poised ready to attack with more than just words. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spat again with more force, stepping towards him with narrowed eyes. 

And Jean swallowed. Because he didn’t know what to say. Or how to say it. All he knew was that the proximity of him made Jean feel like every nerve ending in his body was on fire. It felt like the moment of takeoff when he stepped into a jump, and everything suddenly spun, when he was midair and he didn’t know if he was going to land it. But he wasn’t even able to think straight, because his body acted on instinct alone.

And he wanted to act. He _ desperately  _ wanted to act.

Clenching his fingers into tight fists he dropped his head, looking at his bare feet on the mustard green carpet, and willing this need away. It was not genuine. It was not. 

Suddenly there was a sharp jab in his shoulder.

“Hey, moron! Don’t ignore me!” Yuri snarled, jabbing it again “Tell me what the fuck is going on! You’re skating worse than a fucking novice, and you don’t talk to me. And now you’re not even coming to practice! What the fuck?”

Jean tensed. Yuri was right. Of course he was, but how could he explain that he felt suddenly so very lost. That he hadn’t felt so unmoored since high school when he had given up on the idea of having a soulmate. And that this was so much worse. Because for all that he had resigned himself back then, a small, hidden part of him had never stopped hoping. 

But here he was, standing a foot away from his soulmate and no longer knowing if all he believed was true after all. If the irrational urge to curl his fingers in Yuri’s damp hair and pull him in a bruising kiss was truly what he wanted, or if it stemmed from his wishful thinking. 

It did, didn’t it? He had reached that conclusion weeks ago, after all. He knew the way Yuri’s presence made his heartbeats pick speed had nothing to do with Yuri, and everything to do with the idea of Yuri being his soulmate. 

And you were supposed to love your soulmate, weren’t you?

Except Yuri didn’t believe in soulmates. 

He watched as the angry expression on Yuri’s face slowly morphed into a shade of repressed concern that looked entirely wrong on him. Then he shook his head, damp hair following the motion, and plopped unceremoniously on Jean’s unmade bed.

And maybe Jean’s feelings for Yuri were not his own, but the clench of guilt in his stomach was genuine. 

He walked to his bed, sitting down next to him

“I didn’t mean to ignore you.” he said quietly, looking at his hands “I just… I had to figure some things out.”

“What things?” Yuri asked, and there was something defensive in his voice that made Jean feel his guilt increase tenfold.

“I… You said you didn’t believe in soulmates.” Jean said carefully, not looking at him “And I started to wonder if maybe you’re right. If maybe all of this is just, I don’t know, fake?”

It tasted bitter to even say it, but it was true, wasn’t it? It was what had been bothering him for the past weeks. Trying to give a shape to what they had. It was not friendship, no, that much Jean was sure of. But any attraction he felt towards his soulmate was not true either. So what were they? Were they something? Or was it just the ability to write on each other’s skin. Sharing a connection that had no greater purpose.

“Soulmates are bullshit.” Yuri said, staring ahead at the wall “It’s bullshit, and it makes people act like morons.” 

There was something final in his voice that made Jean’s stomach squirm. It wasn’t quite disappointment, but it still felt like something cold had slithered under his skin, squeezing his still fast beating heart. 

Yuri was right, he was right. 

And yet in spite of the knowledge of how phony it all was, when Jean turned his head towards him, he could not stop looking at Yuri’s profile. At the way the strands of drying hair hung in front of his ears, obscuring part of his cheek, while at the same time framing the thin line of his mouth. At the light, barely there, dusting of freckles on his nose, and his lily white skin, with the palest scattering of blush on the cheek, which grew darker when Yuri noticed him staring, and pivoted his head in a sharp move, snarling a defensive

“What?” that did not conceal the embarrassment Yuri was feeling. 

“I’m sorry.” Jean said quickly, swallowing down the way his heart picked speed at the sight of a blushing Yuri Plisetsky. 

But then he remembered all of this was not true. It was not. He was just convincing himself. And the thought felt like a bucket of cold water. He averted his eyes, looking down at his hands, palms limply facing him where they rested on the jersey of his pyjama bottoms.

“I don’t fucking understand you.” Yuri exclaimed with irritation “What does this soulmates bullshit have to do with your skating? Or with talking to me?” there was a pause then, and Jean lifted his head to look at Yuri.

He was eyeing him with a guarded look, face unreadable.

“You were only talking to me because you believed in that crap.” he said, and Jean could almost physically feel Yuri slipping away. When the blond rose to his feet, Jean almost leapt, grabbing his forearm before he could make his way towards the door. 

“No.” he breathed, stumbling over his words “I mean, yes, but no. I  _ like  _ talking to you!”

“Then why the fuck did you stop?” Yuri snarled, pulling his arm to set himself free. Jean’s grip tightened.

“Because I got confused. And scared.”

“Scared? What the fuck did you get scared of, you idiot?” Yuri spat, the harshness of his tone barely concealing the genuine confusion underneath.

“After you told me I started… well, I kinda. Fuck this.” he said almost silently, and he did not miss Yuri’s startled expression at his cursing 

“I wanted to do this.” he said, and then he pulled Yuri towards him.

And caught his lips in a kiss.


	18. Chapter 18

Yuri was frozen, his heart stopping for a too long second while his brain registered the fact that Jean Jacques fucking Leroy was kissing him. He was fucking  _ kissing  _ him. His lips were slightly chapped, but still soft against his, and Yuri’s stomach was doing somersaults. Every cell in his body had halted on the ledge between the blatant urge to push JJ away and gape at the moron because  _ what the fuck _ , and the surprising one to pull him closer and deepen the kiss. 

The fraction of a second was stretching into a strange timelessness, and Yuri had no idea what to do. He felt entirely at loss. There was something warm pooling in the pit of his stomach and he squirmed. What the fuck was up  _ now? _ Why was he reacting this way? Why wasn’t he snarling at the moron to get the fuck away? 

Yuri blamed confusion on his reaction.

A moment later Leroy started pulling back, and Yuri’s hand suddenly flew out on reflex, gripping the back of the idiot’s head and preventing him to go anywhere. And he pushed his lips back against his, kissing him properly. Every nerve ending in his body was on edge, much too alive. It felt so fucking right he set aside the ricocheting thoughts which were screaming  _ what the actual fuck,  _ and opened his mouth to deepen the kiss. He felt JJ’s hand sneak around his waist, pulling him closer, and his own hand gripped the front of his t-shirt, holding onto him for dear life. 

He had no fucking clue what he was doing, let alone why he was doing it. The only thing he knew was that kissing JJ felt like the rush of nailing a quad, only to leap up once again and fly high into the next jump. His heart was beating too fast, threatening to jump straight out of his ribcage when JJ’s palm made it’s way to Yuri’s cheek. He could feel the light callouses on the palm, and he heard JJ sigh into the kiss. A shudder ran through him. 

And suddenly, like a bucketful of cold water, realisation of just  _ what  _ he was doing hit him. 

Yuri ripped away from him, stumbling backwards, staring at the idiot with wide eyes. 

He had been  _ kissing  _ Leroy. The moron he had been unable to stand until recently. The idiot who wrote to him about his days so much Yuri sometimes forgot the thousands of miles which usually separated. The dickhead who had been ignoring him for the past weeks, and skated like a newborn foal, because he had been thinking. Which somehow had led him to kiss Yuri. 

Who had been kissing him back.

It was the biggest what the fuck in the history of what the fucks! And yet his stupid heart kept thrumming loud and fast.

“What the  _ fuck?!”  _ he gasped, chest still heaving, and unable to keep the heat from rising to his cheeks. It was JJ, for fuck’s sake! Leroy and him  _ did not  _ go around kissing each other. That was not normal.  “What the fuck was that?”

“I…well, it was a kiss?” JJ replied, suddenly very interested in the mustard coloured carpet under his feet. There was a blush on his tanned face, and Yuri gaped at him while the older skater awkwardly scratched the back of his head. And that did  _ not  _ look endearing. Not one bit. 

Yuri scowled.

“Thank you for the fucking clarification” he spat with sarcasm “I wouldn’t have noticed on my own.”

“I’m sorry.” the moron replied, eyes still downcast and Yuri didn’t know whether he wanted to punch or kick him. Or  _ kiss  _ him again. 

Fuck.

_ Fuck. _

He had just  _ kissed  _ Leroy back, hadn’t he? Fuck. 

There was a thick shroud of confusion seeping through his skin, and he didn’t really know what to think, or how to feel. The only thing he knew was that his heart was refusing to beat at a normal pace, and his mind felt like it was short circuiting. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was Beka’s voice. And he could picture it perfectly, the slow drawl he would use to once again imply feelings Yuri did  _ not  _ have for the moron he was connected to. He did  _ not. _

But he had kissed him back. And it had been anything but bad.

Fuck.

Yuri felt like he was hovering mid-air about to flub a landing. 

“Look, I’m.. I don’t know, this is all so messy.” JJ said, pulling him away from his thoughts. He lifted his gaze and looked at Yuri with the same befuddlement he felt “I mean one minute you were my fiercest rival, and the next you’re my  _ soulmate _ , and I just…” he trailed, gesticulating as he searched for words “Well I kinda started noticing you.” he said at last, and then he exhaled heavily “But I think the only reason why I did is because you’re my soulmate…”

Yuri didn’t know where the sudden surge of irritation came from, but he couldn’t stop himself from biting out

“Go figure.” he said sourly “Soulmates are bullshit.” he spat, then feeling a sudden surge of something vicious he added “No fucking way I’d be worth noticing otherwise, right?” 

He almost winced at how moronic his own words sounded. Almost like he cared if JJ noticed him. Which he  _ didn’t. _ Not in  _ that  _ way at the very least. He wanted to be recognised as competition, as a better skater. But he was not stupid, he knew what JJ had meant. And Yuri shouldn’t fucking concern himself with that. There was no fucking reason for the anger which was flickering inside him, and even less for the undercurrent of disappointment he felt at the back of his mind. There was  _ not. _

And yet it was there, along with the sharp reminder that he  _ had  _ kissed Leroy back, only scarce minutes before. 

“I don’t think that.” JJ countered with a frown, looking earnestly at Yuri, whose heart was once again racing. Or maybe it had never stopped doing so.  “You’re… well you’re amazing.” Leroy told him with a tinge of awe, adding in the same breath “I mean, I thought that even before I found out we’re soulmates. I’ve always admired the way you skate. It’s incredible and beautiful.” and then after a small pause “And well,  _ you’re  _ also pretty beautiful too.”

Yuri cursed his blood vessels for deepening the blush he felt. And he completely gave up on trying to rein in his racing heart. He swallowed, trying to push away this stupid haze from his mind, and latched onto the last shreds of perfectly sensible thought.

“What.. what exactly is the problem then?” he asked, pointing at the fallacy in JJ’s reasoning, and clearing his throat midway through the sentence.

And JJ stared at him, bafflement filling his blue eyes wide. 

“I… I don’t know.” he replied, voice almost soft, and dark eyebrows furrowing in a manner that was absolutely  _ not  _ endearing.

“You don’t know.” Yuri repeated, glad for the distraction from the way his whole body thrummed in something much too akin to anticipation. JJ pouted, and Yuri tried his best not to stitch the adjective  _ cute  _ on anything resembling the moron. He was annoying, tolerable at best. 

And yet Yuri’s wasn’t snarling, he wasn’t even tapping his foot impatiently. No, he was by far too caught up in the contemplation of the giant idiot. Of the intrinsic softness of the way his mouth pursed, the mess of his hair, bedhead turned into a downright nest by his fingers combing nervously through it while kept mulling over something that apparently wasn’t even a fucking problem. Yuri didn’t fucking understand him. But he could hardly understand himself in that moment. 

He could have spared himself a pitiful training the day before if the idiot had used that stupid brain of his. They sure wouldn’t be staying here, awkwardly waiting for something to happen, or for the idiot to snap out of his funk. 

And Yuri wouldn’t be able to still feel the ghost of that fucking kiss.

Oh.

Fuck. Did it mean… 

“You actually  _ wanted  _ to do that!” he snarled loudly “You.. you wanted to kiss me and stuff!”

And the moron actually flushed, in what was a perfect rendition of the color of his team jacket.

“You did kinda kiss me back…” he countered with a small,  _ hopeful _ , smile, and Yuri spluttered. 

“What does that have anything to do with this?” he gritted through his teeth, quite aware of how defensive he sounded.

“Because I think I’d like to kiss you again.” he said with a small grin “If you want me to, that is.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, another cliffhanger. I'm so sorry!!! (シ_ _)シ


	19. Chapter 19

Jean had no idea what he was doing. He was acting purely on instinct, running with things as they happened. Everything which had unfolded from the moment he had walked to the door and opened it, to the silence of this moment, so complete he could hear the ding of the elevator in the corridor while Yuri gaped at him, every single sentence they had exchanged, every revelation, every epiphany, it had all been too much, too fast, and the only thing Jean had been able to do was react. Follow his gut feeling, and trust his fast beating heart to know better than his rational mind could in that moment. 

He hoped he would not regret his choices. 

Or the frankness of his last words.

Yuri was still looking at him, chest rising and falling in almost heaved breaths, and he could see the blush dusting his pale cheekbones, his wide green eyes frozen in their stare. His hair was still halfway wet, sticking in various direction, and the way it framed the sharp lines of his face made Jean’s heart stutter. 

He truly  _ was  _ beautiful, Jean had not exaggerated. Every line of him looked sculpted in marble, and yet he was anything but cold. His eyes, bemused as they were, still blazed with that mercurial energy which was just  _ Yuri _ , stripped of all his masks and roles. The Yuri he had gotten to know through small scribbles, tidbits thrown here and there, vague answers and eloquent anger. The Yuri he enjoyed having around. Who made him grin and tease, and feel like everything was not as complicated as he had convinced himself it was.

Jean felt so stupid when he remembered that less than an hour ago he had been sure this pull he felt was anything but genuine. It had taken him Yuri’s trademark bluntness to realise how silly he had been. And his mind may still be reeling from all the revelations, but one thing was clear to Jean, he had started falling for him long before he had known who Yuri was. He had admired Yuri Plisetsky, the breathtaking Russian skater with a bad temper, and at the same time he had loved every scribble he had exchanged with his soulmate. 

He should have seen it right away. But maybe Yuri was right, and he truly was an idiot. 

It didn’t really matter in the end.

The only thing that counted was that the way his eyes were drawn to Yuri’s lips - the lips he had  _ kissed _ , and it had been perfect, beyond perfect, it had been everything - that this need to kiss him again was something he truly wanted, something he yearned.

He looked at Yuri and waited for a reply with bated breath.

“I don’t know.” Yuri said, wrinkling his forehead, and looking at him “I have no fucking idea.” he muttered, and Jean wanted to tell him in did not matter, even though disappointment was already tasting bitter on his tongue but Yuri continued “I mean I  _ did _ kiss you back. And it was not horrible…”

“I’m flattered.” Jean deadpanned with a snort, teasing him even though he felt like he was at the kiss and cry waiting for results after a free skate.

“Fuck off.” Yuri bit back flatly, his lips pulling in a thin line “I’m trying to make sense of all this shit. Don’t be a dick.” he said with a flare of irritation, and then he mumbled silently “But yeah, it was, well, I kinda liked it, I guess.”

“So does that mean that you’d be okay if I well…” Jean began tentatively, his hand already reaching forward. 

“I don’t know!” Yuri exclaimed, interrupting him before he even finished the question, and Jean hovered in mid-motion “I have not thought about this, any of this shit. I was just pissed off about you ignoring the fuck out of me and skating like a moron, but now I’m suddenly in the middle of this thing, and I don’t even know what the fuck…”

Jean’s hand dropped, as a sudden urge to simplify things took him over.

“Let’s go on a date then.” he told Yuri, holding his breath.

“What?”

“Look, I’ve had my share of epiphanies too, alright, so how about we do this the proper way and go on a date?” he elaborated, gauging Yuri’s reaction, and blessedly seeing a hint of relief in the way his shoulders eased a notch.

“Okay.” he said, nodding slowly, then with more conviction “I can do that. But nothing sappy!” he added quickly, flashing him a no nonsense look.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Jean exclaimed in mock outrage, lifting his palms dramatically “No flowers, no candles, and no dinner.”

“I’m not against food.” Yuri bit out.

“So dinner?” Jean asked with a grin, feeling a strange surge of joy. Yuri nodded

“But no…” Yuri began 

“...no candles. Yep, got the memo.” he finished the sentence, unable to contain his ear to ear grin “So, tomorrow after practice?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Yuri replied, then clearing his throat “I should… um, my room, I gotta…”

“Yeah, of course.” Jean shuffled awkwardly, suddenly feeling terribly self-conscious. He scrambled for the doorknob, opening it “I guess I’ll see tomorrow at the rink.”

Yuri nodded, all but sprinting out of Jean’s room.

“And you better skate properly, or I’ll kick you, with my skates on.” he told him, embarrassment set aside in favour of grumpy annoyance.

“I will.” he said with a grin “After all I have to kick your ass.”

Yuri snorted.

“No fucking way, idiot.” he told him, before nodding in lieu of a goodbye and walking towards the elevator.

Jean closed the door and slid down to the carpet, feeling like his heart was about to burst out of his ribcage. His mind was still reeling, overwhelmed with everything which had happened, all the twists and turns. And he got a date. Yuri and him were going to go on a date the next evening. 

It was outlandish, impossible, absurd, and he would have probably added a few more choice adjectives if his mind would have been able to do anything but run in circles, replaying every single exchange, every motion, look, eye roll. He felt exhausted and at the same time he knew there was no way he was going to sleep. Not with all of this on his mind.

He needed to talk to someone.

Sighing and shaking his head he pushed himself back on his feet and walked to his bedside table, picking his phone. Tapping his screen he scrolled through his contacts until he reached Izzy’s number. His finger hovered for a couple of seconds. He frowned. Maybe it was not the most tactful move, but beyond their relationship, she  _ had _ been a friend too, she still was. After the breakup they had stayed in touch, mostly talking about mundane topics, and never,  _ ever _ , touching the subject of soulmates. But in that moment he needed someone rational, someone who could help him make sense of all this.

Sighing he pressed call. 

After a couple of rings Izzy answered.

_ “JJ? Is everything alright?” _ she exclaimed in lieu of a greeting.

“Hey, Izzy.” he said tentatively “I’m sorry I’m calling you, but I kinda need someone to talk to?”

_ “Dummy. What are you apologising for?”  _ she said with a chuckle  _ “I’m your friend, you know that, right?” _

“Yeah, of course I do.” he replied, sitting down on his bed and tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear, while he pulled the covers over his legs “But this is about, well, my soulmate.”

_ “Oh.”  _ Isabella replied, and there was a long pause that made Jean hold his breath  _ “If you’re calling me about it then I’m sure it’s important. Look, I  _ am  _ your friend, so don’t be shy.” _

“Okay.” he said with a long exhale, and then he began telling her the whole story, from the very first  _ Hello _ , to the events which had transpired in his hotel room just before he had called her. Isabella mostly hummed, nudging him to continue his tale, and the mere act of speaking it out loud felt liberating. Everything appeared clearer to him when he recounted it. And Jean wondered if he should have called Izzy earlier, weeks ago when he had self-combusted with doubt at his own emotions.

_ “You were scared, JJ.”  _ she told him after he finished speaking.

“Scared?” he asked, frowning.

_ “JJ, I’ve known you for a very long time. You’re a romantic sap, JJ.”  _ Isabella elaborated  _ “Don’t get me wrong, I loved this side of you, but you gotta admit that when it comes to soulmates you’ve always had very high expectations. And when the thing you’ve always wanted finally becomes attainable, that’s scary.” _

“So you’re saying I got cold feet once my soulmate was someone real?” he asked, frown deepening. Could she be right?

_ “In a way. Look it’s normal. Remember the first season you qualified for the GPF?” _

“Of course I do! I’ve never been so terrified in my whole life!” he exclaimed, laughing “And the year after too, I was a mess at the short program in Barcelona” then shaking his head “Maybe you’re right. I… I guess I don’t want to mess this up.”

_ “You won’t.”  _ she told him firmly  _ “If Plisetsky hasn’t strangled you by now I think you’re quite safe. Didn’t that boy hate you?” _

“Hate is a strong word…” he argued, eliciting a laugh on the other side of the line “Okay, he couldn’t stand me. But I’m pretty sure we’re past that point.”

_ “Then what’s the problem, JJ?”  _ she asked, and it sounded quite rhetoric  _ “Look, there’s nothing to be scared of, okay. Relax, go on a date and just be yourself.” _

“Yeah, relax and be myself.” he repeated, feeling his shoulders relax. It was going to be okay. After all, Yuri had not punched him when he had impulsively kissed him. In fact he had kissed him back. Jean’s heart stuttered at the thought. Izzy was right, everything was going to be fine. It was. 

He had to think like that.

Then another thought occurred to him, and his heart skipped a beat from an entirely different reason.

“Oh God!” he exclaimed breathlessly “Where am I going to take him? What are we going to do? He explicitly forbid me from doing anything he would think sappy...”

_ “JJ, chill.”  _ Isabella’s voice was patient as ever, and it was a godsend  _ “You’re in Italy, right? Find a pizzeria or a restaurant. Nothing fancy.”  _

“Okay, yeah, I can do that.” he said, nodding quickly.

_ “And don’t overthink.”  _ she added, just as he began thinking about option. And Jean chuckled. There was only a shade of hysteria in it.

“I won’t.” he told her, then sincerely “Thanks Izzy, I mean it”

He heard her laugh softly, and he was sure she was shaking her head in fond exasperation.

_ “Any time.”  _ she told him warmly  _ “Look, I gotta go now. I’m glad you called. Good luck tomorrow.”  _  then she added more seriously  _ “And don’t be a stranger, okay?” _

“I won’t.” he said with a smile, bidding her goodbye, and letting the phone slide down to the mattress.

He exhaled. 

His head felt clearer now. And for the first time in quite a while Jean felt a surge of optimism. His lips pulled into a wide smile. He was going on a date with his soulmate. With Yuri.

His heart skipped a beat.

And Jean didn’t mind.

  
  



	20. Chapter 20

Yuri had always considered himself a sensible person. And one with little patience for people’s penchant for dramatics. They pissed him off like very few things could. On a good day he would scoff at those idiots. On a bad day, well it depended on how bad the day was, Yuri guessed. Be it as it may, being a figure skater meant he was subjected to the primadonna flair of divas like Victor, much too often. He had lost count of the times he had witnessed his fellow skaters overreacting for the most moronic of reasons. So basically, Yuri had never doubted he was above all this bullshit. Sure, he might have lost his temper a time or a hundred, but he had  _ never  _ acted like Georgi or Victor. 

That was to say like a lovesick idiot. 

Which was why the sudden appearance of what he couldn’t help but describe as fucking  _ butterflies  _ in his stomach, left Yuri blinking at himself, confused as fuck. 

It wasn’t just by the way his body was reacting, which wasn’t to say he was  _ okay  _ with it, increased heart pace and all that crap. No, it was the whole fucking chain of events that had taken place earlier that evening that left him feeling as lost as Chris’s sense of shame. Everything had happened so fucking fast. Just a couple of hours earlier he had been pissed off at JJ, ready to literally knock some sense into the fucking moron because what the fuck. And now he was lying sprawled atop his bed, listening to the fast beating of his heart, and unable to deny there was a giddiness inside him that made a smile threaten to burst on his lips. And his chest was swelling with  _ emotions. _

Because JJ had kissed him. 

He had fucking  _ kissed  _ him. 

“What the  _ fuck _ .” he murmured with a shake of his head to the empty hotel room, starting to feel overwhelmed by, well fucking  _ everything. _ He could feel his heartbeat all the way to the tip of his fingers. And the giddiness was spreading through him like molasses, sticky and soft.  

JJ had kissed him, and Yuri had kissed him back. 

And it had been so fucking  _ good. _ Yuri would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit he couldn’t wait to repeat the experience. Or to just spend time with JJ. Because as corny and stupid as it was, Yuri enjoyed being there, seeing the myriad of expressions flicker in Leroy’s annoyingly blue eyes, watching the way his cheeks coloured with a blush. Just thinking about it made his heart pick up pace. And Yuri rolled his eyes at his own reaction. He was acting like a fucking besotted schoolgirl.

And yet it was enough to remind himself that he had agreed to go on a date with Leroy for warmth to spread like a tidal wave, and then those fucking butterflies were back. 

It was all so fucking sappy. So fucking sappy.

Especially the way he couldn’t but crack a smile. A stupidly  _ happy  _ smile.

And if all this shit wasn’t bad enough Yuri was forced to admit that Beka had had a point. Which was just the fucking cherry on top. 

Not that he was going to tell Otabek that. They may be friends and whatever, but he was  _ not  _ going to be the one to put a smug expression on the other’s normally stoic face. It was already annoying enough he had been right. Him and everyone else who was into this fucking soulmates business. 

Yuri groaned, shaking his head.

He fucking hated to prove all those morons right. Not that he believed for a fucking second that Leroy and him had been _preordained_ to be together or some other shit. The only credit he had to give to this soul bond was that it had made the two of them actually talk. Yuri doubted he would have ever seen past his bias for Leroy otherwise. So yeah, it was why he was here, smiling at the ceiling and feeling like his heart was threatening to burst through his chest. 

It was annoying to be forced to give even the smallest credit to all this soulmates bullshit. But at the end of the day, Yuri simply couldn’t give a fuck about it. It was true his parents had made him loathe the whole notion of soulmates, but Yuri was sooner going to eat his skates, freshly sharpened blades and all, than give up the way his chest swelled every time Leroy fucking grinned.

Feeling more determined than ever since this whole soulmates business with JJ had begun, Yuri breezed through the morning practice, skating on autopilot while his thoughts were already on the upcoming date, along with a healthy dose of nerves that only resulted in Yuri getting pissed off at himself. He was turning into a poor replica of Katsudon, and while Yuri had to begrudgingly admit the older skater had talent, it did not erase the fact he was absolutely infuriating with his constant nerves and shit.

And Yuri was  _ not _ about to emulate him in that department, thank you very much. So he swallowed down the jitter of apprehension and steeled himself. It was a fucking date, he could do that.

It was a date with JJ and Yuri was fucking terrified. JJ kept writing on his skin throughout the day, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but Yuri had to take a deep breath whenever he wrote his clipped replies. Because he was  _ not  _ going to let the idiot see how much his hands were shaking with nerves. Especially since Leroy’s penmanship was as neat as ever. 

The afternoon crept slowly, so fucking slowly, time almost set on mocking him. And by the time the official  _ and  _ unofficial practices were over, Yuri’s face was set in a full scowl that threatened to permanently stick there. He was so annoyed with himself, and his stupid reactions he had reached the ending section of his already too short patience. Only to push beyond and into the numb state of  _ fuck it, let’s get over with this shit. _

It saw him through the commute back to the hotel, the scalding shower he took once he got back to his room, and the rather short process of throwing on his favourite set of clothes. It had been almost relaxing to just get on with it. But it was a short lived reprieve. Because the second Yuri stepped into the lobby and met JJ’s stupid earnest blue eyes, his heart did a double backflip inside his chest. Only to start beating at a crazy speed when the idiot flashed Yuri with one of his blindingly wide grins.

But annoyance was hard to latch onto when Leroy was walking in his direction, dark jeans hugging his thighs snugly, and a shirt that in spite of the trademark bright red,  _ did  _ compliment his looks. Yuri swallowed, forcing his legs to move, and fighting the blush that threatened to weave its way up his neck.

“JJ.” he managed in lieu of a greeting. Leroy’s smile widened. How was that even physically possible?

“Hi, Yuri.” Leroy greeted him, blue eyes dancing happily. And it did  _ not  _ made another swarm of those fucking butterflies take flight inside his stomach. It did. “Ready to go?” JJ asked, smiling.

“Where are we going?” Yuri asked, trying to keep his composure, and  _ stop  _ the flush that was slowly creeping up his neck. He was not a fucking schoolgirl. Or Katsudon. He was  _ not. _

“That would be telling.” JJ replied cheekily, giving him a lopsided grin that made Yuri roll his eyes. And the normality of the gesture made his shoulders relax a notch. It was just Leroy for fuck’s sake. Leroy who Yuri was very much tempted to kiss right now, and who would probably not mind it at all. Aside from the fact they were still in the hotel lobby, and Yuri was  _ not  _ going to pull a Victor on him and kiss him in front of the whole fucking world to see. 

The feeling of calloused fingers curling around his made him snap out of thoughts, his heart suddenly crashing against the inside of his chest. He turned his widened eyes on JJ, and saw him looking at Yuri with bated breath. 

Only for his face to suddenly alight with the brightest of grins when Yuri twined his fingers with JJ’s. And squeezed.

“Now that we’re done with the sappy shit, can we go?” Yuri croaked, trying to pretend he was not feeling his face on fire. But his scowl felt more like a smile, and he had a feeling his heart was never going to resume a normal rhythm.

“Sure.”Leroy replied with a laugh.

And they walked out of the hotel. 

Hand in hand.

  
  
  
  



	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no real excuses, other than the muse being on a very long vacation for months. I'm gonna try my damnedest to finish the last chapter soon. I have already begun writing it, and I have it all planned out. But the muse is a fickle thing, so keep your fingers crossed!
> 
> Thank you, to everyone who has sent me comments in the past months, gently reminding me how much I love this fic, and how much I love you folks!
> 
> That being said, I leave you to our boys!

 

Jean was grinning. In spite of the nerves that kept humming underneath his skin, and the way his palms were turning clammy with sweat, Jean felt on cloud nine. His heart was beating in his ears, but it did not drown the sound of Yuri’s voice, as the sat across from him, regaling with a telltale rant about his rinkmates. Jean listened, cradling each word close to his chest, along with the sight of him. The way his blond hair shone in the dim light of the restaurant. The sneer on his lips, and the sheen in his green eyes betraying his true emotions. Yuri was a beautiful contradiction and Jean couldn’t help looking at him. Even in the faint orange light of the dimmed lamps he could see the dusting of blush on Yuri’s cheeks. And the knowledge that Jean had been the one to put it there made emotions swell inside his chest, threatening to overflow. 

He was so beautiful.

And he was smiling. Yuri Plisetsky, who probably woke up every morning with a scowl screwed tightly onto his lips, was  _ smiling.  _ And the way his heart backflipped at the sight made Jean feel incredibly stupid for having doubted even a second that the feelings he had for Yuri were anything but genuine.

“Stop staring at me.” Yuri grumbled with a small pout, snapping Jean away from his thoughts. “You’re getting sappy again.” he added sourly, but the effect was muted by the slight upturn of his lips.

“You’re smiling, so joke’s on you.” Jean bit back cheekily, reaching for his glass and sipping from it.

“I’m not smiling.” Yuri retorted testily, narrowing his eyes, even as the corners of his lips quivered. And Jean couldn’t resist laughing out loud, almost sloshing the wine in his glass.

“Sure, I must be imagining things.” he retorted.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Yuri deadpanned  _ “King  _ JJ.” he snarled with a roll of his eyes.

“Like you’re one to talk, Ice  _ Tiger.”  _ he teased back with a laugh “More like Ice Kitten.”

Yuri’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and an angry flush rose to his cheeks. And Jean wondered if he had misstepped. After all he had the uncanny ability of shoving his foot in his mouth, especially with Yuri. 

For the longest moment Jean’s stomach stood curled into a tight knot as he watched Yuri lower his cutlery on the edge of the plate.

“Are you saying kittens are not dangerous?” Yuri asked with an eyebrow raised in challenge, “Because Potya could scratch away that stupid smirk in your face in no time,  _ Leroy.” _

And then the knot unwound as they got back to their familiar banter.

“Potya?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Puma Tiger Scorpion.” Yuri declared proudly. “My cat.”

Jean blinked, once, twice. Puma Tiger Scorpion. Yuri’s cat. Yuri’s  _ cat?  _ He blinked again Puma Tiger-

His own snort of laughter startled him, but a second later Jean was too doubled in wheezing peals of laughter to be able to care.

“You named your cat  _ Puma Tiger Scorpion?!”  _ he managed through his laughing fit, clutching his stomach. “And I thought my siblings are bad at naming pets!”

“I was six when I got it!” Yuri bit back, arms crossed in front of his chest. “Besides what’s wrong with this name?” he added through narrowed eyes.

Jean’s laughter had died down to a large grin, and he shook his head, trying to shed the remnant of mirth. Teasing was okay, but he didn’t want to exaggerate. They were hanging in a precarious balance after all. So Jean asked

“Is Puma Tiger Scorpion the cat on your insta profile?” to veer the conversation to a safer topic.

“Potya. And yeah.” he said, a softer expression descending upon his features. 

Then he was fishing out his phone from his pocket. A moment later he slid it across the table, an album of cat pictures open on it. And Jean could help smiling at the stern faced ball of fluff that was Yuri’s ragdoll cat.

“Kinda reminds me of you.” Jean observed, and it must have been the right thing to say because Yuri’s lips pulled further into a smile. He barely resisted using  _ kitten  _ as an endearment. Somehow he had a feeling it would be pushing too far. 

But his lips spread in a contented grin nonetheless. Because for all that it seemed outlandish, he was sitting in a restaurant looking at cat pictures with Yuri, and subtly glancing at the genuine curl of Yuri’s smiling lips. Lips he had  _ kissed.  _ And wasn’t that utterly incredible?

He was on a  _ date  _ with Yuri. With his soulmate. 

His chest was swelling, and it felt like it was close to bursting. Because it was everything he had ever dreamed about, and yet at the same time it wasn’t. Because  _ this?  _ This was a million times better than any fantasy a younger Jean could have entertained about his soulmate. Yuri was so much more than his imagination could have ever hoped to conjure.  Flesh and bone and hair glowing like a halo. He was sharp green eyes and words that cut like blades. He was a thick armour, a shoot first, ask questions later guy, he was always there ready to defend himself, and yet at the same time he was soft, and delicate. He was the light blush dusting his cheeks. The soft upturn of his mouth as he looked fondly at pictures of his cat. 

The light was dancing in his hair, and glowing on his pale skin. And Jean watched mesmerised, yearning to touch, and yet reluctant to break the perfection of the tableau. 

Yuri had no such qualms. 

“Hey! Earth to Leroy!” he snapped his head up, snarling in mild annoyance, and looking at Jean through narrowed eyes.

“Sorry.” Jean replied sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck “I spaced out for a moment.” then exhaling, he felt his shoulders relax, and he continued softly “I was thinking about all this. You and m-”

“Leroy. Don’t you dare get all fucking mushy on me now.” Yuri interrupted with deadpan snarl, and Jean couldn’t help the startled chuckle. “Don’t laugh” he snapped “This is not funny. I get more than enough sappy shit by being around Katsudon and Victor. They’re are fucking  _ disgusting…”  _

There was a fond outrage in Yuri’s eyes that made Jean’s chuckles evolve into full fledged laughter. 

“Stop laughing, for fuck’s sake.” Yuri hissed, but there was an undercurrent of laughter in his voice as well.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Jean apologised between a bout of laughter and the next. “It’s just you’re such a, what’s the Japanese word,  _ tsundere?” _

“I’m  _ not  _ a tsundere.” Yuri replied flatly, giving him an unimpressed glare “I just don’t like useless shit like-”

“Romance?”Jean inquired, almost cautiously, but Yuri just frowned, shaking his head

“I wouldn’t be on a fucking  _ date  _ if I hated romance, you moron.” he deadpanned, looking at him with a genuinely confused look that seemed to speculate on Jean’s cognitive abilities.

Jean started to frown, about to ask what Yuri had been meaning to say, when it clicked. 

And everything fell into place. 

Why Yuri never wrote back, why he didn’t really believe in soulmates. Why he seemed to recoil in disgust when grand gestures and words were spread in front of him. 

“Actions speak louder than words.” Jean whispered gingerly. Because they had crossed the boundary of teasing, and were now treading on a far more delicate surface of Yuri’s emotions.  

Yuri, beautiful contradiction of delicate and dangerous, Yuri who did not believe in anything he could not see. Because for him things to be there, to be real. Yuri who unlike Jean could not sustain on the vague promises of eventually. Who could not go on wisps of dreams and fumes of hopes. For Yuri things either were or were not.

And Jean was suddenly overcome with the urge to prove to him that  _ this  _ was real. That he was not going anywhere. That he wanted this. More than anything. That Yuri for all of his complexities was perfect, and Jean never wanted to let him go.

Feeling his heart in his throat, Jean swallowed the words that were brimming on the tip of his tongue, and instead slowly reached with his hand across the table. His fingers grazed the back of Yuri’s palm, and for a second everything stood still.

Yuri’s eyes flickered between their hands, almost touching as they were, and Jean’s face. Then, after what felt like aeons, Yuri seemed to reach a conclusion, and he simply exhaled, turning his hand and tangling his fingers with Jean’s. A slow, cautious smile rose on his lips, and Jean could not help his hand from squeezing him tight, his heart skipping a beat and bouncing hard against the inside of his chest.

No words were exchanged, but somehow they both understood.

They were in for the long haul.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I reached the end of this fic. I'm so excited and at the same time so sad this is over. I cannot thank you all enough for your support throughout the long time it had taken for this fic to be finished. Thank you so much!! <3

 

Yuri was waiting for the other shoe to drop. As he made his way back to his hotel room, heart beating quickly within his chest, and a giddiness spreading through his limbs, making it seem almost as if he were floating, Yuri couldn’t help but think something had to go awry. It was not possible for things to be so  _ easy.  _

And yet, the night dripped into the next morning, and then the next one, and things just kept  _ going smoothly,  _ making Yuri’s stomach twist. Because when had things just been so fucking easy for him? It was just not right. 

Still the competition ended, and Yuri flew back to Russia with another medal to pin on his wall, mind still floating in that limbo of incredulity he had been floating around since their date. Because no amount of holding hands and looking into his boyfriend’s - his  _ boyfriend’s  _ for fuck’s sake, how impossible was that? -  eyes and his silly grin had been enough to dispel that air of disbelief. 

He was in Saint Petersburg now, four thousand miles away with nothing but the twirls of ink appearing on his skin, and the fear of getting used to this rippling of emotion underneath. He was home, the season was done, and there was a promise of meeting soon, and just the thought sent flashes of giddiness through his body. They mingled the warmth that would spread whenever he looked at the words forming on his skin or the poorly illuminated image of JJ’s face as they facetimed, leaving him feeling uncannily happy. 

And that was maybe even scarier than the thought of the other shoe inevitably dropping and shattering all this perfection into harsh reality. Because it was not perfect, and yet he enjoyed every fucking second of it.

They were not seamlessly matched. They had not just clicked into place after that first date. The two of them still argued, Yuri calling JJ an idiot at least twice daily, and most of the time he did not understand why JJ did the things he did. In fact Yuri’s eyes seemed to be in a permanent state of rolling. But all things considered Yuri wouldn’t have traded it for all the fucking medals in the world.

It terrified him.

Because even if everything seemed to rush past them, pushing them in all directions between sponsors, family, JJ being on a tour with his stupid band, and a shitton of other responsibilities, they were no longer alone. And that made all the fucking difference. 

It was more than just a connection between their skins, more than shared snark and dry humour. There was a tacit agreement that they  _ were  _ doing this. Giving it a shot. This was not just a feverish daydream, or a fucking nightmare. They were  _ together. _

He knew this rationally, but also deeper, somewhere between the marrow of his bones and the blood pumping in his body at a breakneck speed whenever he got to see that idiot’s stupid grin on the screen of his phone. He knew this, but a lifetime of disappointments was hard to shrug off. And a small part of Yuri never stopped dreading he would one day wake up and realise that all of it, from the first line of ink on his skin to the ghost of JJ’s lips on his own was just a figment of his imagination. 

But April had turned into May and instead of waking up to a bleak spring morning in Saint Petersburg, Yuri was blinking his eyes open in the Leroy guestroom, watching the sunlight dance in the thin curtains, and yearning for the warmth of JJ’s body next to him, barely fitting in the twin bed. They had spent the longest time kissing the night before, and boundaries had been skirted, pushed at, until eventually JJ had forced himself to climb off the bed. He had bid Yuri goodnight, face flushed, and reluctancy visible in every motion. 

And Yuri had struggled to be irritated at the moron for being so fucking considerate. Because for all the tightening coil of want that had flared to life when JJ had deepened their kisses, Yuri was still not ready to make that final leap. Not when he still marvelled at how completely insane their whole relationship sounded.

“There’s no need to rush.” JJ had said, lips lingering next to Yuri’s and making his breath hitch “We got all the time in the world.”

And they did, didn’t they. 

As he lay there, watching the sunlight paint smudges on the ceiling, Yuri reminded himself that this was the one thing where Yuri did not have to prove he was the best, where he did not have to crush his competition. He  _ could  _ take his fucking time. He could enjoy every bit of it. Because in spite of all odds it was May and they were still together, planning to spend their summer between Russia and Canada, talking, teasing, kissing, laughing like the morons they were. And if Yuri’s emotions grew stronger and deeper with each passing day it was perfectly okay. Because Yuri had one certainty: whatever attraction he was feeling for the Canadian idiot had nothing to do with them being soulmates. 

And everything to do with JJ being himself.

But eventually that fucking shoe  _ did  _ drop.

It happened right before the next skating season was about to begin. Yuri had been getting ready to take his flight for the USA to compete in the first event of the Grand Prix, when a series of loud pings from his phone drew his attention from his luggage. He wouldn’t have paid it much attention, but at that very same moment his forearm tingled with the telltale warmth that signalled JJ’s writing, and a hastily scribbled 

_ I’m sorry Yuri...  _  appeared, followed by  _ I guess we’re public now. _

A frown on his face and a tangle of nerves in his stomach, Yuri swiped his phone screen open and began to read what he soon learned were the breaking news about JJ Leroy and Yuri Plisetsky being soulmates. Tabloid journalists were usually poor representatives of their profession, but the more he read the colder Yuri felt, everything inside him tightening in knots. Because they came eerily close to the truth, piecing together snippets of information they had managed to gather because JJ and him were not careful enough.

Yuri swallowed what tasted like bile, muting the notifications on his social media, and taking a pen from his bedside table. 

_ It’s okay,  _ he wrote on his forearm,  _ people were going to find out.  _

But it wasn’t.

As the day bled into a week, and Yuri skated and won at Skate America, managing to somehow avoid hordes of reporters and well wishers, things were not okay. In fact they grew less than okay with each fucking passing day.

It wasn’t that Yuri had an issue about being out in the open about his relationship, that was his own fucking business, and if people had something to say about it he was more than happy to yell at them to fuck off. No, it wasn’t everyone knowing. It was how everything was ascribed to their status as soulmates. How obvious everyone made it sound. Like JJ and him were fucking  _ meant to be  _ or some shit. Like they were as good as married, happily ever after and all that crap. 

It cut too fucking close to home for him.

Because it made him think about his parents. And  _ that  _ was never a pretty line of thought to follow. Yuri struggled not to compare to them. Not to feel sick whenever people smiled beatifically at him as they gushed about how lucky he was to have found his soulmate at such a young age. How romantic it was. 

It wasn’t. It fucking wasn’t. Soulmates were  _ bullshit _ . 

Utter bullshit. He was not dating JJ because they were soulmates. He  _ wasn’t.  _ Yuri was angry, perpetually on the cusp of biting someone’s head off.  

JJ for all of his penchant for obliviousness  _ did  _ catch on that. 

They were in Tokyo, scheduled for official practices a few days before the NHK Trophy began, and JJ was being annoying  _ as fuck.  _ He kept throwing these worried glances in his direction, looking torn between fretting and giving Yuri his necessary space to decompress. Which normally would have been a fine thing to do. Except there was no fucking way Yuri would be able to get rid of the bundle of nerves, apprehension and utter irritation he was feeling. Not when every fucking day it only got worse.

Soulmates. Soulmates, and more fucking soulmates. He had thought he hated the word, but nothing could have prepared him for the unabashed loathing he was feeling for it.

And his stupid boyfriend, his fucking  _ soulmate,  _ was just hovering, making him even more irritated.

Rationally he knew that the idiot only knew Yuri did not believe in soulmates, he had no fucking idea of the deeply set hatred he had for the notion. He didn’t know about Yuri’s parents. He couldn’t. Not when Yuri had never uttered a word about it to anyone. Not even to his Grandfather, for all that Nikolai must have known about it, at least in part. So yes, JJ had no clue, and Yuri should have been more understanding of that. But everything taken in consideration he felt he was entitled to some degree of fucking irrationality.

The pressure built steadily as the competition drew closer. Then, the night before the short program came the knock on Yuri’s door.

He didn’t need to look to know it was JJ.

“Yuri, what’s going on?” he asked, large blue eyes looking at him with worry, and more. So much more. There were shades of emotion in them. Emotion that had  _ nothing  _ to do with fucking soulmates bullshit, and everything to do with what they shared, with the way Yuri’s heartbeat increased as he stepped closer, leaning his forehead against JJ’s shoulder.

Yuri bit the inside of his lips so hard he tasted blood.

He fucking hated this. Feeling like he was on the verge of bursting. Like everything was going to explode in a supernova of deeply buried resentment and shit. He fucking hated it.

JJ’s arms were soft on his back, barely touching him, giving him all the space in the fucking world, and it was not fair. Because this stupid moron was too fucking considerate, too fucking understanding. Yuri did  _ not  _ deserve it.

He exhaled a shaky a breath.

“My parents were soulmates.” his voice was little more than a hoarse whisper at first, murmured against the red fabric of JJ’s hoodie. “They hated each other.”

He recounted his childhood, the screams, the yells, the broken plates, the shades of violet in the bruises on his mother’s arms. He spoke, on and on, never looking at JJ, his eyes somewhere else, a decade and a half ago in a small Moscow apartment with the acrid smell of vodka in his father’s breath, and the blanket of fear tight so tight against Yuri’s small body. He told JJ everything, every single gritty detail, not stopping even when his throat began to feel sore, and he belatedly realised his cheeks were moist. He was crying, but he didn’t give a fuck. He had opened this fucking box, he was going to spill all its contents. Until nothing but emptiness remained.

JJ’s arms were anchors around his body, holding him steady, but never gripping him too tight. Almost like the idiot knew it was what Yuri needed. And when his voice drew to a close and he dared lifting his gaze he met those same fucking blue eyes, but they were not disgusted, they were not judging. 

They looked like JJ understood. Like some great mystery had finally been explained to him. Like everything made sense. But Yuri did not miss the undercurrent of sadness in the way the corners of JJ’s mouth dropped. He half expected to be given a perfunctory “I am sorry.” to be given a slice of the Leroy pity because poor Yuri you had an awful childhood, there there. 

But JJ did not open his mouth. Did not speak, just sneaked his arms tighter around Yuri’s back and buried his nose in Yuri’s hair.

And Yuri stood there, frozen in the moment. Until JJ  _ did  _ finally speak.

“I think I would have fallen in love with you anyway, Yuri.” he murmured into his hair, his stupid baritone making shivers run down his spine. And then he added “Soulmates or not.”

And something unclenched inside Yuri’s chest. 

Before he knew it he was gripping JJ tight and sobbing into his shoulder.

“You sappy moron.” he told him, his voice wet and muffled by the fabric of JJ’s shirt. “You stupid sappy idiot. I love you. I fucking love you” 

JJ’s voice was soft when he spoke in the strands of Yuri’s hair.

“I love you too.”

  
  



End file.
